by Hanna Peach
A hand closed around his ankle just as he gripped a space between two stones. His fingers felt loose grains of stone in the small nook. He reacted, scooping the grit with his fingers and flinging them down towards the giant’s upturned face. The giant roared as the pieces of stone fell into his eyes. He let go of Israel’s ankle to grab at his eyes.
Israel snatched his sword and let himself slither a short distance down the vines. He slashed at the giant’s left hand, severing his fingers that were clutching the vine. The giant gave a howl as his injured hand came off the vine. For a split second the giant teetered. His arms began to windmill, clutching for something to hold on to, blood from his wounded hand flicking through the air. Then he fell back, his scream echoing out across the open sky.
But he didn’t fall all the way. The giant’s foot was caught in part of the vine and his back slammed into the tower wall in a crash of broken leaves and a crack of his skull. He hung, apparently unconscious, his arms floppy like two pieces of hanging cattle.
Israel didn’t wait around. He started to climb again, his eyes focused on that window at the top of the tower. By the time the giant regained consciousness, he would be in the tower with Adere.
* * *
Alyx glanced around them. The carriage had stopped directly below them and the horses were pawing at the base of the tree that Jordan was in, the driver glaring up at them. The four footmen who were climbing up the black trees were getting closer, their eyes focused on Jordan. She had to stop them from getting to Jordan.
She twirled her drawn sword in her hand then dove towards the first footman like an eagle ready to strike at her prey. Wait… That’s right. She couldn’t kill him. Stupid DreamScape rules.
She turned her body in the air so she was diving feet first. The first footman was easy to dislodge with a swift kick. He landed on the ground with a thud. But he hadn’t seen her coming and he wasn’t expecting it. The others did.
The second footman drew his sword and held onto a branch with his other hand. She met his sword with hers. They clashed, Alyx darting between branches around him, trying to get around his sword to kick him off his perch. But his blade kept whirling around them, in her way.
She eyed the branch that he was hanging from. But she already knew that these strange metal branches were too strong for her to cut apart with her sword.
Hmm…but his fingers weren’t.
She feigned an attack which he moved to defend, then she slapped out with the flat of her blade; it connected with a loud smack. He flinched as he cried out, instinctively snatching his fingers away from the branch. He wobbled for a moment as he tried to keep his balance on his feet, which were positioned precariously on a branch. Alyx whipped her sword at him, calculating it so that the tip of the sword came within inches of his torso but not actually touching it. The footman jerked his body back. That was enough to send him off balance and off the branch as well.
Success.
A dark shadow fell over Alyx. She glanced up in time to see the third footman leaping to tackle her in the air, his hands out like claws. He knocked into her, her sword dislodging from her grip. They tumbled from the sky, grappling and twisting in the air. She managed to pull up just before they hit the ground.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the fourth footman climbing steadily toward Jordan. Damn them. They were working together. The third footman was just trying to keep her busy.
“Jordan,” Alyx cried out as she blocked a punch from the third footman.
Seeing the danger coming, Jordan began to move slowly along the branches away from the fourth footman. But he wasn’t going fast enough. As Jordan moved, the ground began to tremble.
Alyx shoved the third footman backwards in the air and slammed his back up against a tree trunk. He made a grunting sound as the air burst out of his lungs, but he didn’t let go of Alyx. He managed to shove his forearm under Alyx’s neck and press along her windpipe. She tried slamming him against the trunk again in the hopes he would let go, but it only seemed to make him hold on tighter around her waist with his legs.
Below them the first and second footman had picked themselves up and were scaling the trees again. The horses were rearing against the tree that Jordan was in, making it shudder as their hooves bore down on the trunk. The trembling grew louder.
“Alyx,” Jordan cried out. The fourth footman was nearing him.
“Kinda busy here,” Alyx muttered through gritted teeth. She wouldn’t be able to get to Jordan in time. Dammit. Dammit. Think!
No time. Wait…no time…
That was it. The horses, the carriage, the footmen. The storyline of Cinderella flowed through her mind. No time. Of course. Why didn’t she think of it before?
She formed an image of a clock in her head. She heard the clock ticking, saw the smooth glass surface of the clock face, and she could feel all the gears inside the clock moving. A chime sounded out through the air.
When she opened her eyes the clock stood in a space to her right, a small replica of the Saint Paul’s Cathedral clock tower, but most importantly the black hands of the clock pointed to the twelve. The second chime rang out.
The third footman started to scream in her face as a third chime rang out. His efforts against her became more frantic as he tried to get away from her to attack the clock. Damn, now she had to worry about them attacking the clock.
Alyx spun in the air, trying to make the third footman dizzy, but he wouldn’t let go of her.
Four…
Below her the horses had turned their attention away from the tree and they were trying to maneuver the carriage around so they could attack the clock. If they could get to the clock and stop it from chiming the final stroke of midnight, her plan wouldn’t work. She had to stop the carriage.
Alyx looked around to see that the first and second footmen had joined the pursuit of Jordan.
Five…
Desperate, Alyx tried another tact. She reached towards the tender spot in the third footman’s ribs and wriggled her fingers. He began to laugh and she redoubled her efforts. He took his forearm off her neck and grabbed at her hands, trying to push them off him. Finally she was able to kick him off her and he fell to the ground, still laughing.
Six…
She glanced around her. The two footmen were closing in on the clock. The fourth footman was nearing Jordan and the carriage had managed to turn around. Jesus, she couldn’t be in four places at once. And the clock was still only halfway through its chiming.
Seven…
She had to do something. The fourth footman was almost at Jordan. Alyx held her fingers up like she was presenting a fan of cards even though there was nothing in them. She imagined a row of silver stiletto blades and felt the cool metal handles under her fingers as they became a part of this Dream. She threw them in quick succession at the fourth footman. The first stiletto pinned the footman’s sleeve to a branch, stopping him from grabbing onto Jordan as he reached out. The rest of them pinned him by the waist, pant leg and ankle, making him look like a strange bug pinned to a board. He cried out in frustration.
Eight…
Now the carriage… She held up her hands as if she was holding two pieces of rope. In her palms she imagined a thin, scaly body and heard a dual hiss. Two snakes materialized in her hands. She threw them down in the path of the horses. She wasn’t allowed to kill these DreamShadows, but she could certainly slow them down. She just wanted to scare the horses with the snakes.
Nine…
And it worked. The horses reared up and back, sending the carriage skidding to one side and the coachman tumbling around in his seat as he lost his grip on the reigns.
Ten…
But the first footman was still a problem. He was positioned in the braches above the clock, about to launch himself at the clock with his swords drawn.
What now? She needed to hold him back for just a few more seconds.
She imagined a woven handle, rough and thick in her hands. A w
hip appeared.
Eleven…
The first footman launched himself from the branch. Alyx lashed out with her whip. The end caught around the ankle of the falling footman. Alyx stepped back, letting herself fall on the other side of the branch, still holding on to the whip. The whip fell across the branch, the footman on one side, Alyx on the other. The footman swung at the clock with his sword just as the whip tugged him back up.
Twelve…
The weight of the footman yanked at her arm. He swung at the clock again. He missed. The last chime of the final stroke of midnight faded. There were several loud pops. The sword dropped from the footman’s hand. The footman who had now turned into a lavender-colored lizard clinging onto the end of Alyx’s whip.
The footman near Jordan had turned into a lizard with azure skin, and he was sitting on one of the stiletto blades still lodged into the branch. Below, the carriage had turned into a large knobbly pumpkin and on top was the coachman-turned-rat, who was now scurrying around looking for a way down off his orange perch. The two horses had become two white mice at the base of Jordan’s tree; they were squeaking hysterically as they fled away from the snake that was slithering across the ground.
“About time,” Jordan yelled from above.
Ha ha, very funny. Alyx sent him a glare that shut him up, but it didn’t remove the smile from his face.
Chapter 12
Israel grabbed the tower window sill above. Finally. His arms ached and his legs were shaky, but he made it. He pulled himself in, tumbling through the window into the space inside the tower and rolling to his feet. He was standing in a large circular room. The insides of the walls were formed of regular ginger-colored bricks. Rows of large rainbow-colored buttons and lines of something white and fluffy bordered the windows. It smelled sweet in there.
He realized that he was stuck in a cage, the bars separating him from the rest of the room. Through the bars he could see Adere, dressed in her pale yellow dress in another cage. On the other side of the room, a figure dressed in a head-to-toe black robe was turned away from them, her long black hair streaked with white cascaded down her back. She was standing in front of a large black pot sitting on an open fireplace against one wall, the smoke wisping up the sides of the steaming pot. The Woman in Black was stirring the contents with a large wooden spoon.
Why did this scenario look so familiar?
Fairy tales, Jordan had said. Fairy tales…
He figured it out. The candied buttons, the icing borders, the gingerbread bricks… This was Hansel and Gretel. And that was the witch who wanted to fatten them both up to eat them. He had to get Adere and himself out of there.
“Adere,” he called to her.
Adere looked up at him. “What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here.”
“I’m going to get you out of here, Adere.”
“No,” there was a screech from the witch. “You won’t ever leave. Nobody leaves here.”
Israel whipped around. The witch turned slowly to face him. Israel couldn’t believe his eyes when he gazed upon her face. It was her face. The same petite features and small tulip lips framed by light blonde strands of hair.
“Adere?” He glanced back and forth between the witch and Adere in her cage. They wore the same face. What the hell was going on? Was this another trick? Who was the real Adere?
“Who are you?” Israel demanded of the witch. “Let us out.”
Adere gasped and cowered in the corner of her cage. “No, don’t. You’ll get her mad and…she does bad, bad things when she’s mad.”
“You.” the witch-Adere pointed a finger at Israel, a finger that he realized was pale and creamy and youthful. “You let this happen to me. You deserve to remain here too. Forever.”
The tower began to rumble and everything shook. Israel ran to the bars separating his cage from Adere’s. “Adere, what’s happening?”
Adere curled herself into a ball in the corner, sobbing quietly. Out of the corner of his eye, Israel saw movement outside the window. His heart stuttered when he saw what was happening to the landscape outside. The horizon of this DreamScape began to crumble and disintegrate as if it were the edge of a sandy cliff being washed out by a greedy incoming tide of a dark sea. Beyond, where the horizon no longer was, was an empty kind of blackness.
Israel launched at the window as it began to close, but he wasn’t fast enough. The space grew over with bricks, shutting him in this tower room.
Israel got the horrible feeling that he was trapped.
* * *
Jordan’s eyelids fluttered. He frowned. They had been kicked out of that DreamScape. Or perhaps he hadn’t had enough energy left to keep them in.
He glanced towards Alyx. Her eyelashes were fluttering open too, but she looked confused. Out of instinct he reached out his hand to grab hers.
“You okay, Alyx?” he asked.
Alyx turned her face to his. Her sleepy face reminded him of when she had woken up next to him in that cottage in his arms. When it was just her and him. When Israel had still been forgotten. Jordan’s heart ached. What he wouldn’t give to have that again. He ignored the thread of guilt weaving through his desire to be with Alyx, like he was wanting something that already belonged to someone else.
She blinked and he watched as her eyes focused and rested on his. She jolted, pulling her hand away, as if she realized he wasn’t who she was looking for. She turned her head around. Towards the boy. Goddamn it. She couldn’t have hurt him any more if she had shoved a blade between his ribs.
“Israel?” The sound of her voice calling the boy’s name… Jordan’s hands clenched into a fist.
Alyx sat up and leaned over Israel to peer at his face. The boy’s eyes were still closed. But he could feel the bond ripple between them. The connection was palpable and thick like a humming against his skin. Their bond. Their damned Guardian bond…
“You get what we needed, Israel?” Jordan growled out.
Alyx didn’t take her eyes off the boy. She touched her fingers to his face and called his name again.
Jordan felt like he was becoming a stranger to her again. Like he was the outsider. But he was, wasn’t he? He had always been the outsider to their bond. Alyx only developed feelings for him when Israel had been removed in her mind. And now that Israel was back and her love for him was back… Israel was slowly but surely locking him out of her heart.
“Jordan, he’s not waking up.” Alyx’s fear-stricken face turned towards him. “And I can’t reach him through our bond.”
* * *
Israel spun around from the wall towards the cackling witch.
She strode back to the cauldron and threw more wood on the fire, making it flare and crackle. Damn, damn, damn. It was too much to hope she was just boiling water for tea.
Israel ran up to his bars, slamming into them. They were too strong. Too solid. He pulled his sword from his belt and took a swing. His blade ricocheted off the metal, leaving the merest of marks. This was futile.
He turned to the brick wall and tried to kick a hole in it. He growled as waves of shock reverberated through his leg. He wasn’t going to kick his way out of this prison.
No, he realized. He couldn’t get them out of there. Adere had to do it. This was Adere’s internal prison, one that she had trapped herself in. She had to get them out. He had a disconcerting feeling that if he couldn’t convince her to let them both out, he may be trapped in here with her forever.
He moved back towards the bars separating him from Adere. “Adere, you have to let us both out of here.”
“I can’t. It’s too dangerous outside. Too much pain. Too alone.”
“But I can help you. I can help you outside. You just have to let us both out of here.”
The witch began to cackle. When Adere turned her face towards the witch, Israel could see the fear, the pain and the hatred in her eyes.
“You’ll never be rid of me, sweetheart,” the witch said. “I’m part of you.”
Israel slammed on the bars, calling to Adere, begging her to release them both before the witch could do something drastic. But Adere wouldn’t let them out. She wouldn’t even respond to him.
So the room in this tower grew hotter and hotter. The steam from the cauldron was rolling up faster as the fire heated up. Israel could feel the flames against his skin even from there. Sweating, he slumped against the farthest wall from the witch.
He tried calling out to Alyx, but it appeared he couldn’t, at least not while he was trapped in this tower prison. He watched as the witch-Adere stirred the cauldron. He watched as the smoke from the steam curled into faces, screaming faces like those from a nightmare.
Then his brain latched on to a thought…this witch was also Adere.
He was reminded of something the Elder had said to him while he had been training in China.
“Your blood, despite your disgust at it, is still a part of you. It is all beautiful. Every part. You must learn to feel love for all parts.”
Everything seemed to still in this moment of truth. As he glanced at the two Aderes he saw himself in her. He saw his hatred of his demon part. He felt the parts of himself that he would not accept, that he thought ugly and unworthy. As Adere did too, evident by how she had separated these two parts of herself. What the Elder had said now truly made sense to him. Israel realized that in some way, he had been in a prison too.
He knew what he had to do.
“Adere,” Israel addressed the witch as he grasped the bars closest to her. He ignored the heat of the bars under his palms. “Adere. I know it’s you in there.”