There was not a moment before this that she could remember feeling so helpless, so small, and so alone. She lay there, struggling with her expended body and all its unrelenting pains, feeling the eyes of the forest on her back. Tears threatened to stream from her eyes and her heart sank even deeper with the realization that she was going to give in, after all the times she had stopped herself from weeping. Misery ate at her as she shook and whimpered in the frigid cold, until a small sound stirred Penny from her misery.
“Penny?” Hector’s voice was soft, cautious, and very much awake. She said nothing, forcing her arms and legs to quit their shivering in an attempt to fool Hector into thinking she was asleep.
“Are you all right?” Hector asked, ignoring Penny’s poorly-concealed act.
“Y-yeah. I’m f-fine,” she stammered through chattering teeth, angry with herself. She felt raw and exposed, and that was something she could not abide in Hector’s presence. Hector propped himself up on one elbow and looked over at her with a searching glance, increasing Penny’s feeling of defenselessness.
“You don’t seem to be fine. In fact I could’ve sworn you were―”
“I was not crying!” Penny argued, sitting up quickly, and Hector leaned back. She hung her head, her shoulders resuming their shaking as she lay back down. “It’s just so—so damn cold out here…”
“That’s it?” Hector prodded.
On any other night, under any other condition, or even if Hector had spoken just a bit differently, Penny was certain she would have answered “Yes” and it would have ended there, but Mulgrith had pushed her too far. Everything tumbled down before she could stop it, and hot tears burned her cheeks.
“I’m tired―tired beyond anything I thought tired could ever be. I haven’t really slept for days and I feel like I’m dying, I’m scared senseless out here, everyone’s blaming me for not being able to find Della, and I―I just want…I just want to go home…” Penny couldn’t stop the tear flow and covered her face in shame. She hated everything about herself and this moment. Out of nowhere Hector’s arms wrapped around her exhausted body and pulled her tight. She gasped, inhaling his signature cedar pine scent.
“Penny…” his voice effused comfort as he put his hand on Penny’s back and held her, the warmth from his body soothing the cold in hers. Penny was rigid with shock for a few moments, but as she became aware of the safety and affection behind his gesture, she closed her eyes and leaned her head against his chest as her tears ebbed. With shaking hands she grasped Hector around his midsection and linked her hands together behind his back as she listened to his heart beat erratically in his chest.
“You’re all right...Good Heavens, you are cold.” Hector pulled her in tighter, then lay down beside her and used the blankets to cover them up. “Is that better?”
“Y-yes. Thanks,” Penny stammered. She was starting to feel dizzy again.
“Why haven’t you been sleeping?” Hector prompted from close beside her. Penny shut her eyes and took a deep breath before speaking.
“I―well, I haven’t been completely honest up to this point. That night on the dirigible―I fell because I’ve been having this strange nightmare, always with this―I don’t know, it’s―it’s like something from Hell. It wears a mask and a dark cloak. I saw it first on that night I almost died in Warwick’s Grotto. It’s like it’s been following me since then, showing up every time I shut my eyes. It made me try and jump. I’m afraid I’ll have another nightmare like before―and―” Penny couldn’t finish the thought, and Hector frowned.
“I understand why you’ve been avoiding it, but for now I wish you’d go to sleep. You’ll die without rest in a place like this. I’ll stay awake all night long to ensure that nothing happens. You’ll be safe, I promise,” Hector assured her.
“B-but―”
“Don’t worry…” Hector lifted his hand to try and perform the spell that sent Penny off to sleep, but she stopped him.
“No, not that, please…It feels too much like dying,” Penny admitted, leaning forward until the tip of her forehead just touched his chest. Hector said something in a low murmur that Penny did not catch, but it was comforting regardless. The warmth from Annette and Hector on either side of her eased the ache and numbness in her bones, and Penny drifted to sleep.
“LET ME SEE it,” Simon ordered, holding out his hand for the glass orb Argent was inspecting. After morning broke, they had set their minds to trying to figure out its function, once and for all.
Argent pretended not to hear him. Simon made an irritable swipe for the orb, which Argent dodged. “Give it here!” Simon shouted, taking hold of Argent’s wrist and tugging.
“Get away!” Argent yowled, batting at Simon’s face.
“It doesn’t belong to you!” Simon squawked, still fighting.
“It doesn’t belong to you, either,” Argent growled, stepping back as Simon lunged for the orb again. Hector, Annette, and Penny watched for a moment as the intensity of the scuffle increased. Penny rose to her feet and stalked across the clearing to break them up.
“Play nice, children,” Penny snapped, pushing the two of them apart and holding her hand out to receive the orb. Argent tried to hand it over, but Simon made one final attempt to snatch the orb away, his fingers grazing the sides of the smooth glass. Penny watched it roll straight out of Argent’s hand and plummet toward the ground.
She made a wild grab for it, but it was too late. The delicate glass landed on rock with a sickening crack, amidst a chorus of frantic yells. Frozen in horror, Penny watched in disbelief as the swirling sands that had been encased behind the thin layer of glass spun into the air.
“You idiot! What’ve you done?” Argent snarled at Simon. Penny’s eyes remained locked on the smashed sphere. The sparkling sand spiraled upwards, forming a gleaming trail in midair. Annette screamed as the sand streamed into Penny’s eyes, nostrils, and mouth in a sudden rush.
Penny couldn’t scream as the particles flowed into her, feeling nothing as the specs of white light blazed into her eyes. Once all the sand disappeared inside her eyes and mouth, Penny stood wobbling on the spot for a moment as all thought was wiped from her head like a wave pushing up onto the sand. She caught a final glimpse of her friends’ expressions, stricken with stark horror, before she collapsed in a heap among the flowers.
Water rushed past, frigid and green, sweeping by until there was nothing but a dark tunnel that stretched on and then turned upwards, back into air. Darkness flew by, speckled with bright blue stars. The smell of limestone hung in the air.
Trees were all around now, some heavy with fruit. Everything came to a quiet stop in a clearing, pausing long enough for Penny to see a lone doorway. Then the world began to blur and fade, but a small star kept blinking, sparkling in quick flashes from the knothole of a willow tree, a willow tree just like the one…
“Just…like the one…” Penny mumbled as Argent lifted her from the ground. Her head lolled back.
“Penny, can you hear me? Are you okay?” Annette called, drawing Penny back into reality. Her eyes fluttered open to see the concerned faces of her friends peering down at her. Simon stood in the background, his hands still clamped over his mouth. Penny lurched out of Argent’s grasp, almost falling on her face as she tried to recapture her footing.
“It―it was a dream,” Penny said, her voice sounding as if it was underwater. It took a moment for her hearing and vision to regain normalcy.
“What did she say?” Simon questioned, still looking horrorstruck.
“A dream! Adrielle stored it inside the glass ball,” Penny cried, unable to holster in her joy at having solved the mystery, however unorthodox the method had been. “I saw the way to go! It’s in the pool, under the water.”
“What?” Annette’s bafflement was evident.
Penny wobbled over to the side of the green pool and peered into its murky depths. Sure enough, she could make out a dark space near the bottom she had not noticed earlier. Penny pre
pared to dive in.
Hector grabbed her shoulder. “Penny, what are you doing?”
“Please, just trust me, it’s this way,” she pleaded, and reluctantly Hector released her.
Penny took a deep breath and dove. She propelled herself down to the bottom, ears aching as the pressure increased. Off to the side of the pool was a long, dark tunnel. Fear flared up for a moment, but it was too late to turn back. Penny shot into the tunnel, swimming until all the light faded and panic set in. The tunnel had seemed so much shorter in the dream. Penny kicked harder, her chest screaming with pain as she fought with all of her strength to move forward. It was much too late to go back now; if she tried to turn around, she’d drown before she got halfway.
To die in a place like this was unacceptable. Her head and chest pounded with pain until she thought they would explode, and Penny exhausted every last bit of energy she had to keep swimming. Just when the dark began to dissipate and a misty blueness shimmered above, Penny’s lungs burst and she inhaled a mouthful of freezing water. She kicked upwards in desperation, hoping that she had not aimed wrong and was not about to meet a head full of hard stone and almost certain death.
Penny broke the surface, coughing up water as she tried to take a deep breath. She paddled forward until she found land and hacked up the last of the water. Collapsing on the stone beach, Penny cursed herself for being so thoughtless.
A moment later a sopping wet Hector broke the surface of the water, his glasses covered with clusters of droplets as he swam for shore, shivering. Clambering onto the beach, Hector dragged Penny to her feet and further onto dry land. Conjuring a blast of hot air from his hands, he proceeded to dry the two of them off. Penny looked around to see that they had surfaced in a shallow, subterranean cavern just tall enough for Hector to stand in. Electric blue mushrooms lined the sides of the cavern, and the pale blue stars from the dream now made sense. The smell and sounds of mineral-rich, rushing water echoed around them.
Simon, Annette, and Argent burst up from the water’s surface, each of them clinging for dear life to the cottony cloud from Simon’s wand as it pulled them forward, beaching them on the cavern floor. Once everyone had dried off, Penny led the way forward, following the only path they could see in the cavern.
The group made their way through the tunnel, crouching as the ceiling got lower and the sides began to press in. When a tiny spot of bright daylight shone warm and yellow into the cave, Penny pushed forward, her arms scraping the sharp stone that lined the cavern until she found a shaft that led back up to the surface. She strained to hoist herself up through the hole, bursting into warm sunlight that streamed from a cloudless blue sky. Scrambling out of the way, she helped Hector out next, and waited until everyone had climbed out of the hole to look around.
She didn’t understand. The underwater tunnel and cavern had been long, but not long enough to have led them out of the vast woods of Mulgrith. They now stood on a dry and overgrown trail lined by pine trees. Bewildered, Penny took a few cautious steps forward, walking around the bend of the tree-lined path. It seemed the only obvious direction. The others followed.
A flurry of green needles and gold fruit whipped past their eyes, and right away the path opened up into a circular clearing with a peculiar doorway in the center.
The doors stood eight feet tall, made out of silver and bolted with black iron. Particles of dust danced in the warm falls of light, and the trees seemed to stretch even taller. Penny took a few steps through the sea of grass that surrounded the doors, circling the free-standing doorway. As the memory from her dream played out, Penny turned sideways and beheld the tall willow tree that grew at the edge of the clearing, feeling herself drawn to it.
Penny approached the tree, placed her fingertips on its gnarled trunk and searched for the knothole she had seen in her dream. Sure enough, it stared back at her from the face of age-worn bark. Penny poked her fingers into the grizzled knothole until she felt something metallic, and clenched her jaw as she worked her finger around the side of the object. With a mighty tug, she uprooted a platinum key that was no longer than her pointer finger and rushed back across the tall grass to the doors.
Penny took a deep breath and allowed herself a moment to take in each of her friends’ exhilarated expressions before inserting the key and turning it with a satisfying click. Feeling her heart fill to the brim with anticipation, Penny pushed the doors open. A strange and wonderful new world opened before her eyes.
It was night on the other side of the doors, but the more disconcerting fact was that only one pearly moon stood fixed in the lavender sky, which blinked with almost too many stars.
In silent revere the group crept through the doors. The land beyond began with a gathering of white flowers that seemed to share the same color and glow as the moon above. The flowers grew in drifting waves beside cattails and long, untamed strands of grass. Water rippled underneath these plants and flowed out to create a shallow pond. In the distance, almost a mile away, Penny saw a white spire rising from the water like a brilliant tusk. In the face of the white stone was a lone arched window. It had to be where Della lived.
No one dared utter a word as they waded through the ankle-deep water that seemed too clean and clear to be real. The marsh of flowers and reeds gave way to a mosaic, and images of fish and octopi made from bits of colored stone rippled up at them. The surrealistic quality of this world bothered Penny more than the dark trees of Mulgrith.
“Penny, I don’t like this place,” Annette whispered when they had almost gone the mile. The group could now see two other doorways leading nowhere at equal distances from the spire, forming a triangle around it and its ring of white flowers. Penny squeezed Annette’s hand to comfort her.
“We’ve come too far to go back. Come on,” Penny encouraged.
The ground sloped upward as the ominous spire loomed high above their heads. A curved door made out of the same white stone faced them, sporting a round blue-glass window that flickered with the promise of candlelight behind it. Penny swallowed the last of her fear as she knocked, hoping that it was loud enough to announce their arrival. After a short wait, Hector took a breath as if he were about to speak, but it ended in a feeble choke as the door swung inward and a woman appeared.
Wrinkles upon wrinkles covered her skin, showing an age more profound than anything Penny could fathom. Hair fell in long, healthy silver waves, all the way to wrinkled feet. Glassy, bulb-like eyes beamed out from under a sheer pink hood as a deeply-veined, age-spotted hand gripped the doorframe to calm its shaking. Penny’s heart lurched as tears welled up in the woman’s eyes, her near-toothless jaw quivering when she tried to speak.
“Oh, how long I’ve waited for this day. You’re here at last,” the woman said, even her voice trembling. She appeared unashamed to be crying, her voice calm as she stepped backward and opened the door wide. No one made a move to enter.
“My dears, it’s me—Della. I’ve been expecting you, come inside,” she urged, curling her index finger inward. As if they stood on a moving floor, all five of them were pulled into the spire against their will, the door swinging shut behind them.
THE LITTLE WITCH beckoned their bodies upstairs, laughing at their frightened expressions. Penny felt as if she had become one of Argent’s puppets and tried to fight against the magic pulling her, but it was no use. Della led them into a room above the entrance hall where a stone table with two long benches stood. The five of them were escorted over and made to sit, and Penny felt control flow back into her body again. Fear now incapacitated her.
Annette was the first to break the heavy silence. “E-excuse me…but what is this place?” she asked, looking at the window, seeming keen on avoiding Della’s eyes. Della seemed to be taking in Annette’s lovely face, and gave her an affectionate smile before answering the question.
“This is the World Between Worlds, my dear. It’s a land of my own design―most everything that you see around you is an illusion. Each of those doors y
ou see is a pathway to the three worlds. I’ve been hiding here for a little over four years now,” Della explained.
Penny’s breathing sharpened. Earth was just a doorway away.
“And why is that? Who are you exactly?” Argent asked, looking Della in the eye. The witch took a moment to gaze upon Argent.
“I have known many names, many stories, and have lived through many ages…I was born in Greece, and my name then was Pythia.” Della’s eyes lit up at the look of recognition on Penny’s face. She smiled an almost toothless grin. “But of course, you would know me.”
“But that would mean―”
“Yes, I am from your world, Penelope.” She shut her eyes for a moment and sighed. “I suppose it’s only fitting that my story should be told just once more.”
“When I came into that world I was human, but I had a magnificent gift―something that not even the Angels of these three worlds could explain. I am cognizant of the possible and likely pathways that the future will take. I began my life out as each young spirit does, selfish and without sympathy for others. I escaped from the fate that was assigned to me and used my gifts for personal gain. Eventually, my innumerable indiscretions caught up with me and I had to answer to Adrielle. She had come to punish me, as I rightfully deserved punishment―but instead of giving me death, which would’ve been a simple solution for both of us, she did something very different. She was right to think that my talents could be useful to her and gave me the chance to be absolved of my sins. I became her eternal servant,” Della lamented, looking miserable.
“What did she do to you?” Hector prodded.
Della’s eyes flashed and a wicked smile lit her face. “The unspeakable―the abominable deed,” she scoffed, which further proceeded to confuse Penny. “There is no way of attaining true immortality on this physical plane, not even the Angels are immortal. However, there is a way of slowing down the process. Only an Angel is capable of it―and it has only been done twice. But I must not say any more about that now, it would change too much of the future. My charge now is to impart, on you, knowledge of great importance, but you must not ask me to divulge anything more than what I will tell you freely. Do you understand this?”
The Angel of Elydria (The Dawn Mirror Chronicles Book 1) Page 35