Inherent Fate

by Geanna Culbertson

The experience had been awful enough when we were expecting it. Falling through such a hole without warning made the experience way worse.

  Daniel and I toppled through a funnel of spinning colors and churning sparks. It felt like fingers made of water and electricity were grasping at our limbs and pulsing through our nervous systems. My hair tangled around me; my body seemed to lose its molecular structure as my form blurred and merged with a luminescent chaos of purple, green, and blue. I wasn’t sure what was harder to take, the nausea of the spill or the biting pain that erupted in my blood as the sparks grew brighter.

  Thankfully the trip was not drawn out. After about twenty seconds of tumbling, Daniel and I plunged out of the wormhole. The landing was not soft. In fact, he and I hit the ground with such a thud that I was pretty sure I heard my spinal cord ricochet against my shoulder blades.

  “Ow,” I muttered, face planted in a pile of leaves.

  A groan to my left indicated that Daniel felt the same sentiment. I grunted back the shock and pulled myself together. Blinking back the fading stars in my vision, I took in the surroundings.

  It was dark and quiet. As my eyes adjusted to the deep night I realized we had landed in another forest. We were standing amidst thousands of tall, slender trees. The ground was covered in their fallen leaves. Beneath them the dirt felt cold and a little moist, like it had rained recently.

  When the ringing in my ears stopped, I could detect the soft babble of a nearby stream. The trees almost concealed it, but streaks of light reflected off its waters about fifteen meters away.

  I tilted my head up to try and pinpoint the source of light. The moon was overhead—huge and full and smiling down like a kindly elder relative. The trees stretched toward it like they were trying to touch its face.

  “Are we on Earth again?” Daniel asked as he stood, taking in the moonlight and dusting himself off.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “Harry—that White Rabbit I met in the Forbidden Forest—said the holes lead to a lot of different lands. But I can find out . . .” I held up my wrist and activated the Hole Tracker that Harry had given me. The fascinating wristwatch projected a holographic map of terrain I’d never seen before.

  I’d learned from fiddling with the Hole Tracker that it displayed a map of whatever realm you happened to be in. Unfortunately, the maps were pretty vague. There were no city names or borders or any other topographical markers to help you. All you had was the name of the realm at the top, a blob-like mass that generally resembled the shape of the region, and coordinates to mark where you were and where the nearest holes could be found. If you were even slightly unfamiliar with the terrain, using such a map was not helpful. The only elements that provided any aid were the aforementioned hole coordinates and the fact that the Tracker glowed brighter the closer you got to them.

  At the top of this map was the label “Earth” followed by a sub-label “Germany.” A small glowing sphere like a firefly noted our location on the bottom left of the map. A little black blob swirled closer to the top center.

  “Yup, we’re on Earth—a place called Germany. And that’s where the next hole is opening up,” I said, pointing to the black blob. I pressed the blob and it expanded. Coordinates and time details projected next to it that told me it would be opening in less than three hours. Not enough time for us to reach it.

  I swiftly passed my index finger along the face of the Hole Tracker in a circular motion, which I’d learned from messing with it was how you scrolled through time settings.

  After a moment another black blob appeared on the map, very close to the previous one. I selected it and made the coordinates and time details expand. As I did this I realized that my wrist had begun to quiver. The Hole Tracker was vibrating and the skin on my hand was burning.

  “Ow,” I cringed with pain as golden sparks fizzed where the injury was forming.

  “Knight! What are you—”

  I held up my other hand to silence him. “Relax,” I said, turning off the Hole Tracker. The instant I did, the sparks rescinded but the burn remained. I grunted and swallowed the residual pain.

  “I learned from Harry and Ashlyn that Book is a Wonderland,” I explained. “There are quite a few of them, like Camelot or Oz or Cloud Nine. Wonderlands run on very different types of magic. They have fairies and spells and witches, whereas other realms, like Earth, don’t. So when you try to use their kind of otherworldly magic here, it doesn’t work. The realm rejects it. And for whatever magic emitted, there’s an equal consequence.” I gestured to my injured hand. “I got this burn from the Hole Tracker. I should’ve expected as much. The contraption must be partially built with magic because when I tried playing with it back at Ashlyn’s I could only operate the thing for about thirty seconds without it overheating.” I shrugged. “At least now we know where we are.”

  “You couldn’t have thought of a better way to find out than maiming yourself?” Daniel asked, shaking his head. He tore a strip of material from the bottom of his shirt. “Here,” he said, taking my hand before I could fully process what was happening. He bandaged the injured area tightly.

  My legs and forearms hurt like they were also starting to bruise. This confused me until I remembered Debbie’s makeover. There was magic in the inky, shape-shifting designs on my boots and my sparkling sleeves. Quickly I clicked my heels together three times. The moment I did, my boots and dress ceased their magic like Debbie said they would.

  “I didn’t get a good look at the coordinates of that second hole,” I admitted to Daniel as I looked at my bandaged hand. “I can check it again later and write them down.”

  “Won’t it burn you again?”

  “If I leave the Tracker on for a few seconds at a time it’ll be fine.”

  “All right. Well, how long ’til you can check?”

  “Maybe a few hours.”

  “Fine. We can take another look tomorrow,” he said. “Though we’ll have to figure out a better way to track those coordinates. Even if we could use your Hole Tracker longer, that map is so vague that aside from going in the general right direction it’s not going to help us much.”

  “At least we have time to figure it out,” I replied. “While I may not have memorized the second hole’s coordinates, I caught a look at the time stamp that went with them. According to the map, the hole is going to open up in twenty-eight hours and twelve minutes. So we can work on finding a way to track its coordinates in the morning.”

  “And finding a way out of this forest.” He took out his pocket watch for a second and glanced at the time. His eyes lingered on Kai’s picture inside.

  I watched his expression as he did so, wondering what he was thinking. Other than when he’d revealed the truth about Kai in the genie lamp, he’d never really taken out the watch in front of me. In the past whenever I’d seen him with it he’d concealed it the moment he saw me looking. I didn’t blame him. Thinking about the girl you love when the girl supposed to keep you from her is hovering nearby seems a bit weird.

  I wondered if maybe he was getting comfortable enough around me to be okay with it.

  “How’d you two meet?” I asked, gesturing to the watch.

  The question seemed to surprise him and he suddenly realized what he was doing. Hastily he snapped the watch closed and stashed it inside his pocket.

  “It’s a long story. You don’t want to hear it.” He turned his back to me, choosing to look out at the stillness of the woods rather than my face.

  “I guess it’s lucky we landed on Earth,” he said. “At least it means we don’t have to worry about monsters or antagonists trying to kill us, for now.”

  I decided to pretend like I didn’t notice the rapid subject change. I was too tired to get into it with him.

  “That’s the spirit,” I said, stretching lazily as I lay down on my back. I folded my hands behind my head and gazed up at the moon. “So why don’t we get some sleep and enjoy the calm? Chances are this may be the last time we’ll be able to for a
while.”

  “Losing your sense of optimism, Knight?” Daniel asked, glancing at me.

  “Nope,” I yawned. “Let’s just say,” my eyelids drooped, feeling too heavy to stay open, “I feel like I’m starting to . . . accept my role in all this.” My whisper melted into another yawn. Then the pain and exhaustion finally caught up with me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw my right hand turn silvery—undergoing the magic watering can’s liquid metal effect again. The sensation hurt a bit more than usual due to Earth’s objection of its magical origins, but I was too exhausted to care. Sleep craved me as a captive and I was more than willing to let it take me.

  o most people, dreams were a break from the world. My dreams were a gateway to another.

  Natalie Poole (about fifteen or sixteen) was sitting on cement stairs. She was crying, or at least she had been. Bright red paint was splattered on her shirt and skin. She’d wiped most of it off her face—a wad of paper towels was crumpled beside her—but there was still some paint in her curly, maple-colored hair.

  “Hey, you okay?”

  Natalie looked up. She was startled, not so much by the voice, but by the boy to whom it belonged.

  I’d seen him before. Long ago—the day I’d gotten my prologue prophecy—I’d had a dream where Natalie was in a school hallway. She had been the victim of a cruel prank where a balloon filled with red paint had exploded all over her. The blonde viper I now knew to be Arian’s lackey Tara had been there, and so had this boy. He’d had Tara on his arm, but had been the only one in the group not to laugh at Natalie’s misfortune.

  He came closer to her now and sat down on the step beside her.

  “I’m fine,” she said, self-consciously wiping a stray tear from her eyes.

  “You’re Natalie, right?” the boy asked.

  This took her even more by surprise. She nodded.

  “I thought so,” said the boy. “I’m Ryan. Ryan Jackson.”

  Ryan Jackson.

  Natalie’s One True Love.

  This was my first real introduction to the other major player in Arian’s game with Natalie. This was the boy Natalie was meant to be with. This was the boy Arian and Tara would use to bring her down.

  Ryan extended his hand to Natalie, but she looked away from the gesture instead of returning it. She was clearly having trouble understanding what Ryan was doing there, and even more trouble composing an articulate sentence while he was in such close proximity.

  I didn’t blame the girl. Ryan was completely swoon-worthy. His eyes were gray-blue like the deep ocean after it had been hammered by rain. His hair was dark, curly, and so thick you just kind of wanted to touch it. And his smile was utterly genuine.

  Aside from his general awe-inducing presence, I knew she was also reluctant around him because of who he was in their world. Based on the hallway scene I’d witnessed before, I’d garnered that he was some kind of popular kid, whereas she was definitely not.

  Despite that, once the initial surprise of his presence lost its impact, Natalie found her voice. And it was not anywhere near as meek as I’d been expecting.

  “Look, I appreciate you coming out here, but I don’t need your pity,” she said bluntly. “I’m sure you have better things to do than worry about the likes of some nobody. So why don’t you move along. Go ahead and check off your popular kid pro bono work for the month. Then please leave me alone.”

  Now it was Ryan’s turn to look taken aback. “I didn’t come out here to show you pity. And I definitely didn’t do it to pull off some kind of Good Samaritan karma. I came out here because you don’t deserve what happened to you in there.”

  “How would you know if I deserved it or not?” Natalie replied, returning her gaze to the ground. “You don’t even know me.”

  “How do you know my reasons for coming out here aren’t sincere?” he countered. “You don’t know me either.”

  She flicked her eyes to him. “Have you ever given me an opportunity?”

  Ryan paused. He clearly wasn’t used to such honest conversation. I supposed that was one of the side effects of dating a manipulative type like Tara.

  “No,” he finally responded. “I guess I haven’t. I mean, I know we’ve gone to the same school for a few years, but I never really thought to, well, talk to you.”

  Natalie sighed. “Don’t beat yourself up about it. Most people don’t see that far out of their own little world. And yours and mine, they might as well be in solar systems. That’s not on you, though.”

  “Yeah . . . but maybe it should be,” Ryan said carefully.

  He stared at the same pile of leaves Natalie had been focusing on and a slight silence hung between them.

  “You wanna be friends?” he asked after a moment.

  He might as well have asked her if she wanted to go blow up their school. She nearly fell off the step she was perched on.

  Natalie raised her eyebrows skeptically. “What is this, kindergarten? If I say yes, do I have to give you my juice box in return?”

  “Hey, you’re the one who said I never gave you an opportunity to get to know me, or me you for that matter. Here it is. Either way you can’t accuse me of not making an effort. Now if we go off to our own solar systems or whatever then it’s on you.”

  “Well, that’s just unacceptable,” Natalie said, not breaking his gaze.

  “What?”

  “You’re Ryan Jackson. You’re the most popular kid in school—captain of the track team, homecoming king two years running, and straight A student to boot. You’re not allowed to be the one in this dynamic who extends an olive branch only to get shut down by a less noble soul.”

  “Then don’t shut me down,” Ryan said. “Come on, what do you say?”

  He stood up and extended his hand to Natalie a second time. She still seemed hesitant. While her tone suggested confidence and a deep security in who she was, I detected a look of distrust in her eyes.

  I could relate.

  Despite her initial reluctance, Natalie took Ryan’s hand. He helped her to her feet and the two stood close to one another before they faded away like ghosts dissolving from this world into the next.

  The scene changed. I was in my suite at Lady Agnue’s. Mauvrey was sitting on the edge of Blue’s bed. Her hair fell around her in such a rich shade of gold it would’ve put Goldilocks to shame. She was wearing a black gown, but I couldn’t quite make out the details. Unlike my vision of Natalie and Ryan, this one was a lot blurrier, like I was looking at it through a pair of glasses with smudged lenses.

  “You understand how sorry I am, right?” she asked sadly, her posture and tone both reflecting a deep sense of shame.

  “Don’t be,” my voice responded.

  I (personally) hadn’t said anything, so I assumed dream me was somewhere nearby but out of sight—the walk-in closet or bathroom, perhaps.

  “But I am,” Mauvrey responded to the voice. “Everything that has happened to you . . . I am afraid it all comes back to me.”

  There was a long beat of silence. Then I heard rustling coming from the door that led to the bathroom. I turned and saw a gowned shadow spill across the floor—my shadow, I presumed. But I never got the chance to confirm it. This dream vanished and a flood of new ones passed through my mind—starting slow and calm at first, but picking up speed as they went on.

  From a distance I saw Chance Darling and me riding in a carriage down a mountainside. Snow fell lightly from the gray sky. Glittering clumps of white powder were caked onto the jagged edges of the rock.

  The carriage was roofless so the snow sprinkled on our heads, but neither of us seemed disturbed by it. In fact, even from far away I could detect a sense of peace in dream me. She closed her eyes and leaned back so that the icy flakes grazed her face as they fell.

  The vision shifted and I was transported to a lake so blue it disgraced the sky. The surface was still and glassy like crystal, but farther out there was a powerful embankment of fog so thick that it blocked all view of what lay
beyond. My perspective drew closer to this area until I was consumed within the depth of the fog. It fenced me in from all sides, though I could still see the lake beneath me. My soul felt the cold kiss of the mist like a burn.

  The lake now looked darker and more ominous. As the dreamscape started to fade away and my presence exited the vision, I saw part of the lake begin to ripple. A graceful, fair-skinned arm began to reach out from beneath the water, extending straight up as if it were reaching for the clouds.

  Again the scene changed. It was replaced with Natalie and Ryan again. They walked through a hallway talking, but their words were muted. Natalie threw her head back in laughter. He did the same. And like a snap of awareness, a close-up of their faces triggered my dreams to accelerate, shifting through a succession of flashes.

  Flash one: I was in a cluttered store. The aisle space was tight—stacked tall on either side with knickknacks of every sort from lamps to chairs to vases and other antique-looking tchotchkes. The shop was relatively dark, so the items spilled shadows everywhere. A large, floor-length mirror caught my eyes, but only for a moment.

  Flash two: A woman with radiant black hair and a sparkling, long-sleeve gown sauntered past walls of thick green glass. There was a determined expression in her eyes and a glowing ball of fire in her right hand. The tight sphere of flames floated above her palm like she was producing it.

  Flash three: Mauvrey and Blue were fighting, but I didn’t know where or what about. The background was an onyx blur and the girls themselves were purple and shadowy like three-dimensional silhouettes. Blue stabbed at the princess with her hunting knife. Mauvrey evaded with speed. There was a ferocity in Blue’s eyes that was dangerous, and a smugness in Mauvrey’s that worried me even more.

  I felt dizzy, almost sick watching them. I was glad when a bright flash consumed everything and transported me away. Seeing Blue and Mauvrey like that had filled me with a kind of anger, nausea, and pain that I could not describe.

  I was in a white void now. Unlike every other dream I’d had in this passage of sleep, I had a physical form. I strode across the barren dreamscape by my own free will. I thought I was alone at first. But then I saw her.