by Laurel Gale
“But I thought the point of all this was to earn our wishes,” Melody said. “And to rescue Luke.”
“So did I.” That was what his father had said. “I guess we haven’t finished yet.”
Melody glanced back at the snakes. “Let’s get out of here.”
Their walk to the door triggered no more booby traps. The door opened easily, and they stepped out, test three successfully completed. Neither of them felt like celebrating.
A dark passageway led to the next area, which was more cave than room. The rock walls, ceiling, and floor jutted and receded in irregular patterns. A deep chasm cut from one side to the other, with only a narrow bridge to provide passage. Like the other rooms, this one had engravings of an animal decorating the walls. There were torches, too, though their weak light illuminated only the edges of the cave and not the vast center.
“Do you think Luke made it this far?” Melody asked.
Crow thought back to the screaming they’d heard earlier. “No.”
“Then where is he?”
“I don’t know,” Crow said. “But I think I’ve figured out these engravings. The tortoise stood for perseverance. We couldn’t give up no matter how hopeless it seemed. In the second test, the bird was a crow, my namesake, so I should have guessed sooner. Crows are really smart. They even make simple tools out of twigs. The crow stood for cleverness, and we had to be clever enough to find a way out. The dog in the last room stood for loyalty. We had to be loyal to each other, even if it meant giving up what we wanted.”
Melody looked at the new engraving, which depicted a small mammal with a long, broad body and a wide stripe down its back. It was eating a cobra. “What’s this supposed to be?”
“I think it’s a honey badger.”
“Are they known for having a good sense of balance?” Melody asked. She was looking at the bridge.
“No.” Crow had done a report on the weasel-like animal in July—his mother didn’t give him summers off—and he’d learned that the honey badger would fight anything from a swarm of bees to a lion. “They’re known for their fearlessness.”
He took a torch from the wall and, using his one attached hand, carried it to the bridge. It was an old thing, made of rotted ropes and decaying wood panels. With the slightest touch, it swung back and forth, a threat in every creak.
No matter how Crow held his torch, he couldn’t get a glimpse of the chasm floor. Melody threw a rock into the gulf. They waited and waited, but they never heard the satisfying thud of it reaching the bottom. For all they knew, there was no bottom. Fall down there, and they would fall for eternity.
“What if none of this is real?” Melody asked.
“Huh?” Crow, who try as he might had nothing in common with fearless badgers, was distracted by a growing dread. Even the severed hand in his pocket was trembling.
“Our wishes weren’t real,” she explained. “They were illusions, right? So maybe everything else is an illusion, too. We’re not really in any danger.”
Crow handed her the torch. “This seems pretty real,” he said, taking his severed hand out of his pocket and waving it perhaps a little too close to her face. He didn’t want to be mean. “Some of what we see might be illusion. But some of it’s real, too. To be safe, I think we’d better assume it’s all real.”
“It was just a theory.” She looked down at the bottomless abyss and gulped. “How are we going to do this?”
Crow shrugged. “Carefully. I’ll go first.”
He put one foot on the bridge, which groaned under the light pressure. With his other foot, the bridge swayed back and forth like an angry horse trying to throw off its rider. It wouldn’t have been so bad, Crow thought, if he’d been able to hold on to something. But even if he’d had both of his hands, there was no railing to grasp.
One good swing caused him to lose his balance. He fell, but not for eternity. The wood panels caught him, and he decided to stay as close to them as possible. He began crawling.
When he was about halfway across, the light from the torch, which was still in Melody’s grasp, no longer reached him. Panic froze him. What if a panel was missing? In the utter darkness, he’d fall right through the gap. But the Meera was testing his fearlessness, so he forced himself forward, however slowly.
The light caught up to him. Melody, following Crow’s lead, was crawling forward. She had two good hands, but she was also holding the torch, and she seemed to struggle as much as Crow.
The bridge creaked and groaned. Crow quickened his pace, worried that the old collection of wood and rope couldn’t support the weight of two people. When he reached the end, he slowed down again; a quick departure could cause the bridge to sway, bucking Melody off. The bridge swayed anyway.
The solid, unmoving ground felt wonderful beneath his feet. But the door was still far away, the space between too dark to see. He waited for Melody and for the light of her torch.
When she reached the end of the bridge, he helped her off. They crept forward.
Crow gulped. Good thing he had waited.
A second chasm tore through the ground. This one was narrower than the first—only about six or seven feet across—but there was no bridge. The door stood on the other side. Wide open, it beckoned them forward. It teased them.
Melody took a deep breath. “Fearlessness, huh?”
Crow nodded. “I think we’re supposed to jump.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“We could go back,” Crow said, thinking that physics, not fear, was his main problem. He didn’t know if he could jump that far—although his parents must have done it, and his mother wasn’t exactly the athletic type.
Unless they had faced different tests. The possibility hadn’t occurred to him until that moment.
“No,” Melody said. “We’ve come this far. Just a little farther, and we’ll get wishes. You can wish to be alive again.”
As much as flesh that didn’t rot and a tongue that could actually taste tempted Crow, he still wasn’t convinced. The chasm was awfully wide, and it was a long, long way down.
“Besides,” Melody added, “I don’t want to cross that bridge again any more than I want to jump.”
And they didn’t want to face the Meera’s punishment, Crow added to himself. And they still hadn’t found Luke. He nodded.
They jumped.
Crow didn’t think he would make it. In fact, while flying through the air, he felt certain he would not. But he landed on solid ground, Melody beside him.
The chasm looked narrower from this side. Maybe Melody had been right, and an illusion made the tests seem more dangerous than they were. Either way, Crow was thankful to have passed. Melody, her skin glistening with sweat and her breathing ragged, must have been relieved, too.
But they weren’t done yet. They hurried to test number five.
The next room contained no guillotines, fireballs, or chasms. The exit was a normal door, located at the end of a long, hall-like room. It wasn’t high up by the ceiling, and it didn’t appear to be locked. Nothing stopped Crow and Melody from walking out.
Nothing except Luke.
Still wearing his cowboy costume, he was in a glass display case barely large enough to contain him. The lack of space didn’t appear to bother him, though. He stood perfectly still, with his hands on his hips and a smug smile frozen on his face. Attached to the front of the display case was a metal box with a slit in the top. Above the box was a sign, which read:
LUKE EBSWORTH
A lazy primate with a superiority complex, this animal is native to the Nevada desert. Its diet consists primarily of carbonated sugar water and fried potato products. This specimen is widely considered to be a pest.
“Is he alive?” Melody asked.
Crow thought that, as a member of the dead himself, he should be able to identify death in others fairly easily. Luke’s state, however, proved difficult to diagnose. His skin had a healthy glow, and he was standing upright, not slumped on the floor,
but he didn’t appear to be breathing. He looked like a homicidal taxidermist’s work of art.
Then Luke blinked. Crow stepped closer to the glass display for a better look. Despite Luke’s unwavering smile, there was a glint of horror in his eyes.
“He’s alive,” Crow said.
“How do we get him out?” Melody asked. “We need a key, right?”
The case had a lock in the top corner. Crow pushed and pulled with his one attached hand, but the glass wouldn’t budge.
Luke, however, sprang to life. His smile disappeared, and he banged against the glass. “Let me out!”
Melody glared at him. “Why should we?”
“Isn’t that why you’re here? To res—” He stopped himself. The look of desperation left his face, replaced with an expression of pride. “To help me? Then I can help the two of you fight that monster.” He paused. “What happened to your hand?”
Crow took the severed hand out from his pocket. The fingers wiggled. “It’s okay. My mom will reattach it later.”
Luke’s cheeks puffed up, and he made a retching sound. “You really are a freak!”
Melody turned to Crow. “What do you think? Should we rescue the jerk?”
Luke’s eyes filled with horror. “You wouldn’t really leave me here, would you? I—I—I order you to get me out! That’s right. My dad has lots of money and power. You don’t want to make him mad.”
Melody shrugged. “That’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
Crow wasn’t sure whether she was joking. Surely, she didn’t actually plan to leave him there—although she had seemed awfully mad at him earlier. “Rescuing him has to be the next test, right?”
She looked at the engravings, which showed elephants in this room. “I don’t know. Maybe we’re supposed to leave him behind. Don’t a lot of animals abandon weak members of their group? What do you know about elephants?”
Crow shrugged. “They’re big. They have good memories. They’re afraid of mice. That last one’s probably not true. The second one might not be, either. I don’t know what the elephant means here, but we can’t leave him behind.”
“Fine,” she said, crossing her arms. “How do we get him out?”
Crow took his hand off the glass, since the case obviously wasn’t going to open that easily. The second he did so, Luke froze again, his hands back on his hips, the smug smile back on his face.
“At least we don’t have to listen to him anymore,” Melody said.
Crow couldn’t argue with that. “There has to be a way to open the case. All these tests have been passable. We just need to think.”
“What about the other display cases?” Melody asked. She gestured to three cases, each the size of the one Luke was in, and each covered with a black sheet. “Maybe there’s something inside that will help us.”
“Maybe,” Crow said, although he thought it more likely that they’d end up stuck inside themselves. “But what about this box?” He pointed to the metal box located under the sign on Luke’s case, the one with the slit in the top. “It looks like the kind that’s at museums so people can make donations.”
“I don’t have any money.”
“Neither do I.” Other than the severed hand, Crow’s pockets were empty. Since he was never allowed to leave the house, his parents had never bothered to give him an allowance. “What about your candy?”
Melody made a face. “Do I have to? Halloween’s the only time I get candy. My dad says it’ll rot my teeth if I eat it year-round.”
“You can spare a few pieces, can’t you?”
“Fine.” She grabbed two pieces, a caramel and a chocolate, and shoved them into the box. There was a clicking sound, and the glass door opened.
Luke unfroze. He pushed against the glass door, ready to run out, but Melody held it shut. “Apologize,” she said.
“What for?”
Her face turned red. Her jaw clenched. “For calling Crow a freak.”
“But—”
“Come on, Crow. Maybe just opening the door was enough to pass the test. Let’s lock it again and leave him here.”
“Wait!” Luke yelled. “I’m sorry, Crow. The hand trick is kind of cool, I guess. Maybe you could get a job at a circus. You’ll be more popular than the bearded woman!”
“Thanks,” Crow mumbled.
Melody kept the door shut. “Now apologize to me.”
“Sorry, Melody. I won’t call you Smelody anymore. Or Melodork. Or Smelodork—although that nickname’s really good. I was saving it for Monday.”
“And say I was right about magic and aliens and the school librarian.”
He looked at Crow. “Yeah, you were definitely right about magic. I believe you now. Are you going to let me out or what?”
She opened the door, and he came out.
Melody and Crow walked toward the exit, but Luke hesitated. He was looking at the other display cases.
“Shouldn’t we help—” He stopped himself. In the distance, something howled. “Never mind. Let’s go.”
“Wait. Shouldn’t we help what?” Crow looked at the display cases. Black sheets covered them, so he couldn’t see what was inside, but he’d assumed they were empty, waiting for new victims.
The howling turned into a roar. It sounded closer.
“I don’t know. Nobody. Nothing. We should hurry.” Luke marched toward the door. Crow and Melody shrugged at each other, then followed.
When Luke fell, Crow and Melody were walking right behind him. As a result, they didn’t have enough time to stop, and a chain reaction ensued. Luke ended up at the bottom of a pileup.
“Get off me!” he said, not that it was necessary. Crow and Melody were already scrambling to get up.
“Are you okay?” Crow asked, extending a hand—the one that wasn’t severed.
Luke flinched at the sight of the gray-skinned, yellow-nailed atrocity. “I don’t need your help. My legs are just sore from being stuck in that glass case. Took you long enough to find me.”
He tried to get up but fell back down, crushing his cowboy hat beneath him. During his next attempt, he fell a third time, and the seam in his brown breeches split.
Melody snickered.
Luke stood up, slowly and carefully, his face bright red. He took the scarf from around his neck and tied it around his hips so it covered the tear in his pants. In the process, though, he also managed to tie one of his fingers into the knot. When he moved his hand, his scarf, breeches, and legs moved with it. He fell. Again.
This time, Melody didn’t just snicker. She laughed, her gleeful hoots echoing off the walls.
Crow laughed, too, just a little—until he felt a maggot squirming in his ear, reminding him that he was in no position to mock others.
“Shut up!” Luke yelled. He untangled his finger from the scarf.
“Do you think the tests are over?” Melody asked. They were standing right in front of the door now.
“Maybe.” Crow was already thinking about getting his wish, going home, and leaving all of this behind him. Hope rose up in him, but he tried to keep it under control. “I guess we’ll find out when we go through that door.”
He pointed to the door, now right in front of them.
“What do you mean, test?” Luke asked. The words seemed to throw off his balance. He stumbled but caught himself against the wall.
Crow explained about the Meera, the tests, and the animal engravings. “How many tests did you go through?”
Luke frowned. “I didn’t know I was being tested. That monster brought me down here. I walked for a while, but the hall just went on and on, so I sat down. After a while, the monster came for me. It put us in those cases—”
“Us?” Melody asked.
A horrible, high-pitched screech spilled out of the room behind them, the one with the honey badger test.
“Me,” Luke said quickly. “I meant to say the monster put me in that case. I just assumed it had done it before, to others. Then you came. It’s not fair,
you know, testing someone without telling him. If I’d known, I would’ve passed everything.”
Melody rolled her eyes. “You think you’re perfect, don’t you?”
“I take after my dad.” He pulled on the door, but it didn’t budge. He pulled harder, using his entire body to try to force the thing open. “The door’s stuck. Is this another test?”
With only a hint of a snicker in her voice, Melody said, “I think you need to push.”
Luke’s face burned red. Mumbling something about the stupidity of the architect, he pushed the door open and stumbled inside.
Crow’s hope deflated. The room had new engravings. They showed a spider sitting on its web, and although Crow had no idea what virtue the arachnid represented, he was sure of one thing: the tests weren’t over yet.
Also, the ground was moving.
At least they couldn’t hear any more animal sounds. The Meera had decided to leave them alone, for a little while anyway.
The floor was divided into a series of rectangles, each of which slid slowly back and forth. Pools of water lay between the rectangles. The exit awaited them on the other side of the room.
“Guess we jump,” Luke said, bending his knees in preparation.
Melody grabbed hold of his cowboy coat. To no one’s surprise, he fell.
“What’d you do that for?” He rubbed his knee, which had smacked against the hard surface of the rectangle. “I would’ve made it.”
“You can’t even stand without tripping over your own feet,” Melody said. “What makes you think you can jump ten feet? Onto a moving platform?”
He sulked. “I told you, my legs were sore from the case. I’m better now, and I bet I could jump twice as far as you.”
Melody took Luke’s hat, flattened from his many falls, from off his head. She dipped it into the water. Within an instant, hundreds of fish, each no bigger than a thumb, swarmed around it. When she lifted the hat back up mere seconds later, the half that had been submerged was gone. Eaten.
“Okay,” she said. “Go ahead and jump, then.”