“Okay!” Colby yelled, turning around and trying again.
“This is stupid,” said the girl, just loud enough for Mandu to hear her.
“For you, yes. Which is why I’m not having you do it.”
“Then why him?”
“You and he are very similar. Both clever. Both headstrong. Both very good with your heads. But Colby was given too much too soon. He can wipe a being out of existence with a thought or summon terrible nightmares from the dream. So he thinks big. He thinks like a bully. Brute force. We must break him of that or he will do something very, very terrible.”
“Like what?” she asked.
“Like something else that cannot be undone.”
“Why don’t I have to do it, then?”
Mandu smiled. “Because you started with nothing. You think clever, only limited by your age and power. If you get too clever, you too will do things that cannot be undone. What you need is to think more like Colby, just as he needs to think more like you.”
“Found one!” yelled Colby, vanishing into the much larger trunk of a black walnut tree.
The girl ran quietly for a spell, mulling over what Mandu had said. “Clever Man?”
“Yes?”
“Am I really going to die out here?”
Mandu shrugged. “Child, if you survive this, it will only be because they want you to survive this and only if it serves their plans. Odds are, if you live, it won’t be a life worth living.”
She deflated, scuffing her foot in frustration. “Oh,” she said, thinking about the last time she saw her body. The pain of waking up to fresh scars and a shattered skull scared her less than dying out here, but never being able to dreamwalk again scared her most of all.
“You know,” he said, “there is a rock, far out in the desert, well off every road and songline. Big one. Just a boulder in the middle of nowhere. Many Clever Men know where it is. Spirits have been known to sleep there from time to time. One day, you might find everything you’re looking for under that rock.”
“One day?” she asked, hopeful.
“If you live to see that day, you’ll know it when it comes.”
Mandu kept his eyes on the horizon, tracking the sun, doing the math silently in his head. They might not make it in time. But he was afraid of telling the children, afraid that they might spend the last few hours of their lives running.
“Mandu!” Colby shouted from a hundred yards away. “This is awesome!”
IT WAS NIGHTFALL and they were quickly approaching the border into Arnhem. Both Colby and Mandu were exhausted, their bodies run well past their breaking points. Though both were accustomed to long runs, neither was prepared for this. It was getting harder to be able to keep a straight thought in their heads. All Mandu could think about was crossing the border. Get into Arnhem. Then they would be safe. He repeated it over and over.
The pretty little girl in the purple pajamas, however, wasn’t even winded. She was a thing of the dream and could run for as long as she wanted, just not as fast anymore. But she kept pace with the others, as fast as her legs could now carry her, scared of what might happen if she found herself too far behind them.
The sound of the first crow cawing in the dark broke Mandu’s heart. This was the moment he was dreading. No future was set in stone, he knew that. But even the best outcomes here were unappealing. Both of these children were about to make some of the most important decisions of their lives, but if he dared tell them, dared hint at the true outcome, they would never choose the right path. Either of them.
While the first caw broke his heart, the second was utterly devastating. It came from ahead of them. And it was followed by a terrifying volley of them.
The kutji were waiting, lined across the forest, standing between them and Arnhem.
“Keep running,” said Mandu. “Don’t stop.”
“But they’re right ahead of us,” said Colby.
Mandu pointed at the horizon. “You see that ridgeline?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s Arnhem Land.”
“So?”
“They can’t follow us into Arnhem. They’re not allowed.”
“Why not?” asked Colby.
“Because that was the deal I made with them.”
“You what?”
“Our friend here is not the only one who has trafficked with these spirits. My deal with them keeps them out. If we can get to that ridge—”
“We’ll be safe!” Colby ran harder than before, getting his second wind. “But how do we get past them?”
Mandu smiled, reaching into his dilly bag. “I have a surprise.” He pulled out his bullroarer, winging it through the air with a WHUMP-WHUMP-WHUMP.
The kutji descended from the trees, feathers molting into shadows, wings changing into arms, running at full speed the moment they touched the ground.
And then the forest came alive.
The mimis crawled out from every crevice imaginable, from under rocks and logs, from cracks in the mud, from between the leaves in trees. Their colors varied from black and white to red and purple, yellow and green. Each looked as if it was finger-painted to life, thin as a rail but vicious, fearless.
They rained stones from slings on the incoming shadows; they hurled boomerangs through the air; lobbed spears tipped with flame. The first wave of shadows toppled to the ground, some merely felled by rocks, others screaming, flaming spears sticking out of their chests, boomerangs lodged in their heads. Then the mimis descended on the fallen with clubs, kicking, beating, scratching.
Jeronimus yelled, realizing he’d once again been lured into a trap. He would not spend another night trapped in a pit, plucking the feathers from birds, waiting for death. He yipped twice, waved his stubby arms around in the air, and called back his shadows to rally with him.
The shadows pulled their fallen behind them, dragging them back, mimis chasing them, casting rocks and spears after them as they did. They crawled into the shadows of trees, hiding from the advancing fairy mob, staying still and silent, hoping not to be spotted. Then Jeronimus yelled again. “To the skies!” And the shadows burst into a flock of birds, flapping wildly, chasing the stars.
Colby, Mandu, and the pretty little girl ran even harder than before. This was their only chance.
The crows, still dozens strong and wounded, raced toward the heavens, the stars crystal clear and beaming, the sky black and cloudless. They powered their way up, fighting against the pull of the earth, tiny wings pushing as hard as they could. Then Jeronimus evaporated, his feathers falling away. His form broke down into mist, the blackness of his sheen swelling into the night, obscuring the night sky.
Jeronimus had become a storm cloud, ever expanding and ominous, his companions dutifully following suit.
The horde of crows dissolved into a storm front all their own; dark, bulbous, rolling clouds surging out across the sky, flashes of lightning belching within. The wind kicked up, fierce and steady, gusts whipping between the trees, a torrent of leaves scattering through the swamp like buckshot. Then the rains came.
The winds tore through the forest, microbursts tearing mimis in half, snapping their brittle limbs, tossing them around like tumbleweeds. The mimis scattered, desperately clawing their way between rocks, back into tree hollows, bracing themselves against the gales. The entire forest shook, balding trees waving, shedding leaves by the pile; branches tearing free, crashing into the mud. Storm raging, loud and unrelenting; earth trembling below with the bellows of thunder. It was a sound like the end of the world.
Colby ran. Mandu ran. But the pretty little girl in the purple pajamas huddled behind a dug-in boulder, head between her knees, hands behind her head, fingers laced together. She couldn’t outrun the storm anymore; she couldn’t ignore its winds or its lightning. With her tether gone, she was slow, clumsy, and exposed. And she was scared to death.
She mumbled quietly to herself, asking for unseen help, praying that the rains soaking her would soon pass, that t
he winds would soon die down. But the tempest still howled, the storm getting angrier and angrier by the moment. The twisted, broken, red-painted body of a mimi tumbled by, a single splintered hand twitching to grab her as it passed before being thrown into a billabong.
Four clouds broke away from the front, drifting down, letting the gusts tear them apart. They shredded, the wisps becoming feathers, the feathers fluttering together. The four became crows again, dropping through the rain, straight toward the pretty little girl in the purple pajamas.
At once the rest of the clouds burst, the rain stopping, the stars emerging in swaths of sky. Crows formed, flapping back down toward the earth, mist trailing from their feathers. Dozens of birds once again dove down, the thunder having trailed off into the distance, the storm nothing but a memory.
She cowered still behind a boulder, unaware of the hell coming for her.
With the winds gone, the mimis emerged from their holes. This time, however, the kutji were ready, swooping in on the stick men, claws out, tearing them off their trees, snapping them in half against boulders and branches. It had been hundreds of years since the kutji were afforded the chance to be this savage, memories of cobbled-together maces crushing skulls, splattered blood across coral sands flooding back. They felt alive. In a bloodthirsty rage, the spirits relived the heady days of wanton brutality, unleashing centuries of pent-up fury on the mimis they could get their claws on.
What few mimis remained unseen stayed hidden, sure that they would be the next dead against a rock or snapped into pieces by bare hands.
The carnage was over almost as soon as it began, the shadows looking around, eager for other victims, bleeding pieces of mimi in their hands like clubs, crows soaring about them as spotters.
Then the crows formed a murder around the pretty little girl. Some sat on branches, watching, others shifted back into their more human forms. Jeronimus was the last to flap down, dropping to the ground, a stub-fisted shadow, smiling from ear to ear.
“Hello, Kaycee,” he said.
“That’s not my name,” she said. “Not out here.”
“It was always your name. It will always be your name. Kaycee Looes. Daughter of Wade Looes. Last and furthest descendant of Wouter Looes. We’ve waited a long time for you, Kaycee. A lot of years.”
“A lot of years,” hooted one of the other shadows.
“And now we can right the four-hundred-year-old wrong. Can you help us do that?”
The pretty little girl in the purple pajamas shook her head. “No.”
Jeronimus leaned in, inches from her face. “Too bad you don’t get a say in the matter.”
SEVERAL KUTJI LANDED in the swamp just ahead of Colby and Mandu, running toward them at alarming speeds.
“Colby!” shouted Mandu. “The trees! Take to the trees!”
Colby knew exactly what he meant. He felt out for the trees, sensed their connections. A kutji leaped into the air, claws out, raking at Colby. It came down, inches from him, a heartbeat away from striking. Then Colby vanished, running headlong into a tree and out another twenty feet away.
He was alone now, his legs burning, aching, barely able to carry him. And he ran into another tree. And another. And another.
The kutji couldn’t keep up.
The ridge was only a few tree hops away now.
Behind him he heard the screams of the chittering mob, but dared not look back. Run, he thought. Just keep running.
Another tree. And then another.
And then the ground was different. He looked down, saw the rock beneath his feet.
Colby had made it to the ridge.
He turned, looked back to see Mandu just below him in the swamp, running into a tree of his own. Then he felt the WHOOSH of air as Mandu blew past him, turning as he did and slowing to a stop. Both doubled over in agony, trying to catch their breath. Colby, hands on his knees for support, looked up for the little girl in the purple pajamas, but she was nowhere nearby.
He looked out farther, then farther still, and finally he saw her, swarmed with maddened kutji, too numerous for her to escape. “KAYCEE!” he screamed. She looked up, as scared as he’d ever seen her, held out a pleading arm, begging him to come back.
Colby ran for the nearest tree, but Mandu put out a stiff arm and stopped him cold.
“You can’t,” said Mandu, panting.
“They’re going to kill her.”
“Not tonight they aren’t.”
“We have to help her!”
“We can’t.” He pointed to the edge of the ridge. Below them stood a half dozen furious kutji, braying madly, but refusing to take another step. “We’re in Arnhem now. You pass that ridge, they will kill you.”
“We can’t leave her.”
“We have to. It is the choice she made. I told you both it would come to this. I told you at the campfire. If she followed, it would not end well. If she didn’t go home, she would die before she returned to her body. She chose this. This was what she has worked so long and hard for.”
“No! That’s not fair.”
“Not all destinies are fair, Colby. Hers isn’t, yours isn’t. We get the lives we choose, even when we don’t know we’re making a choice.”
Colby and the little girl stared at each other across the wide gulf of the swamp, both with tears in their eyes. “I don’t leave my friends.”
“This time you do.”
“We’re staying.”
“Colby, what’s about to happen, you don’t want to see. I’ve seen it. And it will haunt me for as long as I live. Don’t do this. Come.”
“No. I’m not—”
“Come, before you see something you can never unsee.” Mandu looked out over the valley ahead of them in Arnhem. “I have something to show you. Something very important.”
Colby turned, crying. “But, Mandu—”
“I have seen many versions of tonight in my dreams. There is one in which you didn’t make it up here. And another in which you went back. They both end the same. Those were terrible dreams. Please, let them remain dreams. Come on.”
Colby turned back to the swamps, sobbing, raising a hand to wave good-bye to his friend.
Below, the pretty little girl in the purple pajamas simply watched him, stunned, unable to speak.
Then Colby turned around one last time and walked sadly into Arnhem with Mandu.
CHAPTER 36
QUEEN OF THE DARK THINGS
The shadows watched as Colby vanished into the forest, out of their reach.
The pretty little girl in the purple pajamas couldn’t watch. She stood crestfallen, defeated, eyes cast to the ground. “Are you going to kill me?” she asked.
Jeronimus shook his head. “We don’t have to. You already did the heavy lifting on that for us. You’ll be dead any day now for sure. We just have to wait for your body to die.”
“Where is it?”
“In the hospital where we left it. You’re on machines. But they’ll pull the plug any day now.”
The tears began to flow steadier now and she sobbed openly into her hands. “And what will happen to me then?”
“You’ll become one of us. And then we can all move on.”
“My dad won’t let that happen.”
Jeronimus smiled wickedly. “He doesn’t have a choice.” He gave a shrill whistle, nodding to a pack of kutji standing behind her.
Out from the pack emerged a single shadow, larger than the others, its limbs long and lanky, having died in much different light than the others. She knew exactly who it was, could feel him, feel his pain, knew it was once her father. Wade.
She fell to her knees, weeping. Destroyed. “No! Dad!”
“Your friends are gone,” said Jeronimus. “Your family is gone. There is only us now. Shadows! Show her what will happen if she tries to run away!”
They descended upon her with a ravenous fury, kicking, hitting, scratching, clawing. They beat her mercilessly. But she wouldn’t budge; she wouldn’t flinch. In f
act, she didn’t move at all. Nor even blink. She just knelt there, thinking about her father. The blows landed but she couldn’t feel them. Hits as strong as the kutji could throw glanced off perfect, radiant skin leaving nary a mark.
She growled, shaking her head at the shadows around her. Slowly, but surely, the ferocity waned, each shadow backing away until none was close enough to hit her anymore.
Then the pretty little girl in the purple pajamas stood up, taking one step toward Jeronimus. “I lied to Colby,” she said hatefully, taking another step. “I told him what he wanted to hear. I’m not Kaycee. Not here. Here I get to be whoever I want to be. I’m taller here. Faster here. Stronger here. And here . . . no one can hit me. No one can hurt me. Especially not you.” She strode up to Jeronimus, her eyes bitter, staring down at him as he looked bravely up at her.
“You have no idea what we can—”
She grabbed his forehead with a single hand, pushing it all the way back on his neck, his mouth open wide and screaming. Then she jammed her fist down his throat, her arm going in all the way to the elbow, grabbed hold of his innards and tugged, turning his soul inside out. Hands gripped tight, she pulled him apart, piece by piece, tearing him to shreds as the kutji shrieked and howled around her like terrified monkeys. Jeronimus was torn into twenty pieces before his pleading stopped and the remains scattered to the ground, melting away into the darkness around them.
And then he was gone.
The kutji went berserk, leaping around frantically, waving their arms, shaking their fists, as confused as they were angry.
“QUIET!” she boomed, her voice echoing through the swamp like an explosion.
The kutji stopped, held in place by sheer terror.
“On your knees. NOW!”
They fell obediently to their knees.
“Who am I?” she asked.
They looked around at one another, murmuring a dozen unintelligible answers.
“Who?” she demanded of them again.
“You’re Kaycee Looes,” said one of them. Several others nodded in agreement.
“No. Kaycee Looes is in a bed somewhere. I am your Queen. And you serve me now.”
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