“Yes. That is what Vella says.”
Suddenly, Connie clenched and unclenched her hand. She did three fist pumps and her head bobbed up and down. She stamped her foot and fire sparked against the marble floor, sending up a curl of smoke. I jumped the heck back and raised my pen.
Connie was gone. A lanky girl my age stood in her place. She put her fists on her hips and frowned at me. She had long red hair that flowed down her back like a river of lava, and as the flow reached her waist, it vanished and reappeared at her forehead, keeping the flow going. Perpetual lava motion. A dress of pure flame flickered about her body, and she had flamey boots. All of her features were sharp. Sharp nose, sharp cheekbones, and a chin that was almost pointed. She even had pointed ears.
“Throw the drop in the pool,” the new girl said. “You want to. So do it.”
Holy flaming personality changes, Batman. Nothing about this girl resembled the shy and creepy Connie who was standing there a second ago. Even her manner of speaking was different: Goodbye British accent; hello American-slang-with-an-attitude.
“What droplet?” I asked, keeping it closed in my fist behind my back.
“Are you kidding me?” the girl said.
“I’m going to guess and say you’re Flicker.”
“No, I’m the Dirt Princess,” She held out her hands and flames ran down her arms and back up. “Throw it in!”
“Easy, Pushy Pants. I’m not throwing this in the water. If I throw it in the water, I’ll lose it.”
“And you might lose your brains while they dribble out your ear. Throw it in. You want to do it—”
“I don’t want to do it.”
“You’re a bad liar.”
“Hey!”
“I know when people want to do something,” Flicker said. “It’s the fire inside them, and I always feel fire. This one’s burning you up. You want to throw the droplet into a pool so bad your hand is shaking, but you’re scared.”
“I’m not scared, I’m . . .”
“Wow, Vella called you brave. She’s not usually so wrong about that kind of thing.” She turned to Squeak. “Does she always fight herself?”
Squeak nodded. “Squeak.”
“Wha— Hey! Thanks for the support,” I said. Squeak shrugged.
Flicker cocked her head. “Look, you . . .” She made a face like someone had just pulled her hair. “Look, you have to . . .” She made the face again, then shook her head really fast and stamped her foot. Sparks skidded across the floor and she vanished.
Connie Cobblestone appeared where Flicker had been, shoulders stooped and gaze on the ground. She wrung her hands together and glanced up at me. She opened her mouth to say something, then stamped her foot five times. Her head wobbled side to side. Then she was Flicker again.
Okay. Wow.
“Throw it in,” Flicker repeated like nothing had happened.
“Look, I’m not doing that,” I said, but I remembered the urge I’d had when I was standing in front of the throne, the first moment I picked it up. What if that was Ripple telling me to do something? What if that urge was the only way Ripple could talk to me, and that was the whole purpose of the water droplet?
But how could I possibly know that? I had to be sure before I cast away my only clue.
I held the droplet out. It glistened on the tip of my finger, and at this distance, Ripple’s face was just a blue spot.
“Are you done with your Mommy-May-I moment?” Flicker asked.
“Look—”
“Throw it in.”
“You’re unhinged.”
Flicker laughed, and it was surprisingly gentle, like a flickering flame, a bedside candle that protects you from the night. “In the Wishing World, you have to love your crazy. Even Connie knows that.”
“You’re Connie.”
“I’m Flicker. Fire Princess.”
“Until ‘poof bang!’ you’re Connie.”
“You have a problem with me?” Flicker asked.
“You’re schizoid.”
“That’s my crazy. Pay attention to your own crazy.”
“I don’t have a crazy.”
She laughed again. “Oh. Okay. Right.” She took a few steps and pointed out the window at the big rip in the sky. “That yours?”
“Well—”
“You fight with yourself so much you rip the sky,” she said. “Define crazy for me again?”
I opened my mouth to retort, but stopped. Was that why I was ripping the sky? Was I fighting myself? Was that why I was broken? But how was I fighting myself? I didn’t see it.
“Our crazies are a lot alike,” Flicker said. Her gaze darkened, and smoke curled up from the corners of her eyes. “If you don’t stop fighting yourself, you’re gonna rip the world apart. If I don’t keep Agatha locked away, she’ll burn it up.”
I thought about this poor little girl with three personalities stuffed inside her. I assumed that Connie was the original girl that had come to the Wishing World, and her Doolivanti self manifested itself by cleaving her into three distinct personalities: Connie, Flicker, and Agatha. Flicker the good, Agatha the bad, and each surfacing at different times. “The way you and Connie talk about Agatha makes me want to run away from you,” I said, gesturing to her. “All of you.”
“Good. Then you’re listening. Look, me and Agatha are the two sides of the same Connie; we’re her Doolivanti self,” Flicker said. “The helpful and the hurtful. When Connie first got here, she was a mess, a lot like you. Helping, burning. Helping, burning. Then Vella and me got together and locked Agatha away. It took everything we had, but we did it.” Flicker shook her head. “Now Jimmy shows up, takes my Skitterspark. Vella vanishes. All that stands between Agatha and a jailbreak is me.” She tapped two fingers on her chest.
With all her foot twitching and face switching, Flicker didn’t seem like a reliable jailor.
She saw my expression. “Hey. Don’t be all judgey, Ms. Blue Eyes.” Flicker jerked her chin at the window. “Is that my mess, all over the sky? No. At least Connie cleaned up after herself, and she was doing fine until Jimmy came along. You’re just standing there, holding your ‘I don’t know what’ll happen’ droplet and making a big, fat mess for everyone else.”
“I don’t trust you.”
“I don’t blame you.”
I laughed; I couldn’t help it. “But you’re kind of asking me to.”
“Hey, I get it. It takes time to warm up to me. Lots going on. But you need to warm up fast. I can help you.”
I blinked. I didn’t like her in-your-face attitude and her twitchy nature. She was bananas flambé with three scoops of personality on top, but she’d said at least two things that rang true, rude though they were. Maybe she wasn’t as crazy as she seemed. Maybe she could help me.
She watched me with those lava eyes. “We both have a reason to stop Jimmy.”
“Fine,” I said.
“Fine,” she said.
“Okay.”
“Well, all right then.”
I looked at the little drop, pressed my lips into a line and flicked it into a pool.
Nine
A Tolkien Gesture
The droplet arced out over the pool, hovered in the center above the surface, then fell in. Seven ripples radiated outward from it, all the way to the edge of the pool. They came back as a hundred ripples, intermixing, jumbling the water. Then it settled, and the seven ripples came out from the middle again and stopped, making seven circles in the water. In the middle, a ghostly image of Vella Wren rose up.
“Milady Lorelei,” she said softly.
“Vella!” I ran to the edge of the pool. “I’m so glad to see you. Things are,” I kept myself from looking at Flicker, “kinda crazy here. I have a bajillion questions.”
She had her serious face on, and she held up her hand. “My time is short, milady. Needs must I convey a message to thee with all haste. Time may allow no more. Jimmy . . .” She winced, as though it was difficult for her to speak.
“He locked you up somewhere?”
She drew a breath, then seemed able to speak again. “Jimmy didst take from me the stewardship of this Wishing World. Now he doth bear the spinner that mayst pull stone from this Wishing World, among other wondrous things. ’Tis his belief it shall give him that which he craves.”
“How did he do that? How could he beat you?”
Her ghostly image faded a little more. “Hearken closely.”
Since my last trip to the Wishing World, I’d read some Shakespeare. It was tough reading, but it had made me feel closer to Vella. Hearken meant to “listen.”
“Needs must thou find me,” she said.
“Where?” I asked.
“’Tis called the Reflection Pool, an’ only thou mayst reach me. Deep within the Kaleidoscope Forest doth it lie, protected by the Watchdog. He shall lead thee.”
“HuggyBug?”
She smiled, but she looked worn out. “Verily.”
“Vella, the rip is back. I can’t use my powers without hurting the Wishing World. How do I fix that?”
“’Tis thy . . .” Her image wavered. She was nearly gone now, scattering like dust in a sunbeam. Her gaze caught Connie Cobblestone, who had reappeared in Flicker’s place. Vella looked surprised, even scared. She faced me, spoke urgently, but there was no sound.
Then she was gone.
What had she said? It looked like she had mouthed “wear.” Why would she tell me to wear something? Would I need different clothes to reach her? I went through my Shakespearean dictionary in my head.
Then I had it.
Not wear. ’Ware. I’d had to look that up once because I didn’t know what Juliet was talking about. It meant to be aware.
It also meant: Beware.
I glanced at Connie. She was so small and shy and pitiful. But there was something . . . insidious about her. She had two other people inside of her: Flicker, who burst out every now and then, all flames and attitude. And another who, according to Flicker, I never wanted to meet. Was Vella trying to tell me that Connie was a ticking time bomb?
“Heh,” I said to Connie. “Hi.”
“That was a scary message,” she said in her monotone.
“Those are the only kinds I get these days—”
“Nom e nom e nom e nom e nom!”
I jumped back as a horde of trees ran around the edge of Ripple’s tall throne pillar. Their trunks swayed back and forth, big branches flailing, bushy leaves shaking as they rushed between Connie and me. Their feet were long roots that spun like wheels and thumped like feet as they weaved between the pools and charged at the tall doorway on the far side of the throne room. They all had deep voices and repeated that chant the whole time: “Nom e nom e nom e nom . . .”
Then they were gone. I looked at Connie with an open mouth. “What was—”
“Nom e nom e nom e nom!” A little squeaky voice said. A tiny tree about waist high ran around the edge of the pillar, rushing after the crowd that had left him behind.
“. . . that?” I finished.
“That was an Enterruption,” Connie said in her monotone.
“Ha ha! Some Doolivanti was a Tolkien fan?” I asked. “Did he make an Elvish Ring That Knows All Things, too? Because I’m not gonna lie, I could use one of those right about now.”
She didn’t laugh, just watched me with her huge eyes.
“Elvish ring . . . Tolkien . . .” I waved my hand at her blank expression. “Never mind.”
“Squeak!” Squeak warned in his most urgent squeakiness.
I spun around, expecting another Enterruption, and my heart jumped into my throat.
Jimmy stood in the tall archway that led down to the sea. Behind him were Jayla, Lashtail, Licorice Man, and Blue Blobby Bobby. No rings and elves for me.
Jayla rode one of her House Cats. She watched me, but without the same zeal as before. Her brow was furrowed, and she kept looking from Jimmy to me.
Come on, Jayla! Wake up and help a BFF out.
“I was right,” Jimmy said. The Skitterspark that Flicker had mentioned bounced all around his shoulders. There was something else, too, a silver spider on his wrist that I hadn’t noticed before. The spinner.
Jimmy seemed happy to see me, in that mean-kid-pulling-the-legs-off-a-grasshopper kind of way. “You came here to find her.”
“I dropped my glass slipper,” I said. “I was in such a rush last time, you know, with the clock striking midnight, the sky ripping open, you trying to stab me with flowers.”
He smiled wider. “You should be scared,” he said, apparently seeing through my tough talk. “What Vella was, that’s me now,” Jimmy said. “I’m the King of the Wishing World. You do what I tell you, and maybe I’ll let you stay.”
“And maybe I’ll throw up in my mouth a little.” I glanced at Jayla, who still seemed to be struggling. Everyone else looked ready to leap at me. I felt like if I could just get a quiet moment to talk to her, I could snap her out of Jimmy’s control.
Jimmy pointed his finger at me.
“Jayla—” I started to say, but Connie grabbed my shirt and pulled.
“We have to run,” she said.
I hate it when crazy people make sense.
Connie bolted, and I was right behind her. A blast of flame heated my back, barely missing me.
Connie ran into the wide main hallway just off the throne room, then turned right into a much narrower hallway, and I followed. The ceiling was just as tall as the throne room, and it made me feel like we were two mice in a maze.
“Squeak!” said Squeak.
Three mice in a maze.
“Yes,” Connie answered Squeak. “That is the only way. I know where it is.” Of course she could understand him. Of course she could.
Jimmy skidded to a stop at the opening of our hallway and plunged after us with his thugs right behind him. Flame roared toward us.
“This way,” Connie said, and turned right down another hallway, then made an immediate left. This place was a maze. Connie was fast for a little girl. Her buckled shoes clacked crazy-fast on the marble, and it was all I could do to keep up with her. She went right again, then left, then left, then right, and I didn’t know where the heck we were. Luckily, Jimmy didn’t seem to know, either.
“Split up,” he roared, his voice echoing off the walls. “Find them!” He sounded really angry. That made me smile. If Jimmy was angry, we were doing something right.
“Okay,” Connie said, breathing hard. I was happy to hear how winded she was, because I was just about dead. How a little kid could run so fast, I didn’t know. It was like it was part of her Doolivanti powers. I stopped, put my hands on my knees and looked at her as I sucked in breath after breath.
“Okay, what?” I huffed out the words.
She touched a spot on the wall, and a one-foot-square section slid aside. It was dark, with just a hint of orange light somewhere deep inside.
“We have to go in here,” she said.
Um, no we don’t. I wasn’t sure I could even fit in there.
“Here they are,” boomed Lashtail. I spun around. He stood at the entrance to our hallway.
Oh, great. Stay and wait for Jimmy and his mutants of the apocalypse, or follow creepy mannequin girl into a dark hole.
“Let’s go,” I said. Connie crawled through and disappeared. I put my head in, wriggled my shoulders through and . . .
. . . got stuck.
Oh, perfect. I could hear Lashtail’s giant footsteps headed my way, with my butt sticking up in the air.
“Oh, come on,” I yelled into the open blackness before me as my feet scrabbled on the smooth marble of the hallway. There was some kind of weird light far below, but it looked like just a big drop into nothing. I yanked and pulled, but the button on my jeans was stuck on the lip of the opening.
“Hey, Cat Singer! What are you—” There was a rrrrowl and a huge thud somewhere behind me, and Lashtail stopped talking.
“Squeak!” Squeak said fr
om the other side of the wall. Suddenly, a hundred mouse paws pushed and tucked all around my waist. I slipped through the opening into a free fall with Squeak clinging to my pant leg. He scurried up to sit on my shoulder.
The door above us shut with a clack and I heard Jimmy yelling and Jayla screaming back at him.
“Did Jayla just save us?” I asked Squeak, hope surging in my chest.
“Squeak,” he said. The noises faded above us as we fell.
“Take a breath,” Connie called from below. Then there was a splash.
I took a huge breath just as I hit the water, and it immediately sucked me under. Squeak clung to my collar, and we rushed forward. I felt the water pushing us, but everything was dark now. I held my breath and hoped it would be enough.
Then I could see light above me, a little pinpoint that grew and grew. I put my hands forward like Superman and tried to make myself as skinny as I could. That light didn’t look big enough to fit Squeak, let alone me. I had horrifying visions of becoming human toothpaste.
We raced toward it and burst into the sunlight.
“Eep!” I said as I was shot from a water cannon. Ripple’s palace loomed over me as I arced over the marble walkway, hit the sea and plunged under without making a splash.
I came up for air, saw that we’d burst out of the enormous seahorse fountain at the corner of the palace. Connie struggled in the ocean not far from me. She winged her arms, splashing, but her head wasn’t staying above the water.
I swam furiously toward her and caught her wrist just as she sank. I pulled her to the surface, and she grabbed onto my shoulders, coughing and spitting.
“What are you doing?” I yelled.
“I cannot swim,” she said in her monotone.
“You can’t swim and you jumped into the swirling whirlpool of death?”
She coughed out more water. “Sometimes you have to run,” she said. “No matter what. You just have to run.”
Connie was as brave as a charging rhino, I had to give her that. I wouldn’t have made that jump if I couldn’t swim.
Except what if that spout hadn’t been big enough for us? What if we had become human toothpaste?
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