“There are metal rods in here,” he said. “They might come in handy as weapons for when those timewyrms come back.”
Karl dropped a hand on Xavier’s shoulder. “Good thinking, son. Keep digging.” He pointed down at Xavier and told the others, “If everyone pitches in, we’ll have this business cleared up in no time.”
Dawna said, “Karl, snap out of it! This isn’t a boardroom meeting about reports. Putting our heads down isn’t gonna cut it.”
Margaret whimpered. “We don’t even know what time it is back home. I need to check on my kids.” She took out her phone and shook it. “Stupid thing!”
“This is definitely the volcano ending,” Gavin said, starting the argument over again.
Dawna yelled, “I know the difference between a volcano and a mountain!”
All of them yelled over each other, digging into the pointless argument about volcanoes versus mountains.
Everyone was arguing except Zinnia, who was sifting through the rubble near the ruined elevator doors. She was searching for the patch of wall that had held the call button and keyhole. It was a long shot, but she hoped she might be able to use the keyhole to open the portal despite the ruined structure. It wasn’t a true elevator, anyway. It was just the magical entrance to the elevator that existed in Wisteria. They could get home if they could activate the portal. All they needed was a bit of luck.
The voices of Zinnia’s coworkers faded into the background. She struggled, physically, to sort through the ruined pieces of wall and stone. She dropped an awkward-shaped boulder, narrowly missing her toes. Everything was so much heavier without magic to help with the lifting.
Zinnia was so focused on her task that she didn’t notice when the group fell silent. She didn’t realize that Queen Beth and the snake-woman, Susan for lack of a better name, had joined them inside the lantern-lit cave. Not until someone tapped her on the shoulder.
Zinnia whipped around, ready to tell Gavin to either help her or shut up and leave her to it. But it wasn’t Gavin interrupting her work. It was the queen, looking somber. And guilty.
“You did this,” Zinnia growled at Queen Beth. “Is this how you amuse yourself? I thought that was your husband’s game, toying with people like they’re playthings. I thought you were the good one.”
The queen took one look at the fury in Zinnia’s hazel eyes and jumped back.
“It wasn’t me, I swear,” Queen Beth said.
“You didn’t send your creatures to destroy this place?”
“I only ordered the timewyrms to leave you alone.” She shook her head, her perfect blonde waves whipping with the movement. Her honey-brown eyes were wide and gleaming in the lantern light within the cave. “I forbade them from coming anywhere near you, but...” She trailed off, her eyes brimming with tears. A sob cracked in her throat. “Now what will we do?”
Zinnia put her hands on her hips. “Why are you acting like you’re the one who’s had something bad happen to you? We’re the ones stuck here without a way home.”
The queen sniffed pitifully. “If you can’t leave, how am I supposed to get home again?”
There was a thunk as she dropped something. A suitcase.
The murderous rage gradually drained from Zinnia. The queen wasn’t lying. The tears were real.
“You changed your mind about going home?” Zinnia asked.
The queen nodded mutely.
“You even packed your suitcase,” Zinnia said. By the looks of it, the queen had indeed intended to return to her home in 1955 via the staircase. No wonder she was as distraught as any of them over the portal being ruined.
“I thought about what you told me.” Queen Beth sniffed and smiled through her tears. “Honestly, the truth is I couldn’t stop thinking about the Gilbert boy. I’ve had fun here with the king, but it’s impossible to love a god the same way you can love a human.”
Coldly, Zinnia said, “I’m glad you had your moment of self-actualization, but nobody’s going anywhere.” Zinnia picked up the two pieces that had once formed the panel that fit on the wall. “This was our way out of here. I still have the key, but what good is a key without a lock?”
The two women stared at each other.
Gavin interrupted, “Your, uh, highness, did you say something about the Gilbert boy?”
Liza had stopped rocking and was standing, staring at the queen with saucer eyes.
Xavier’s eyes were nearly as large. He whipped his head back and forth between the queen and her look-alike granddaughter fast enough to give himself whiplash.
“Two moons,” Dawna said breathlessly, waving a finger and swishing her head. “I knew it! The two moons symbolize the two women. I knew there was more going on to those double moons that kept coming up every time I read the cards.”
Gavin pointed at the queen. “You’re Queenie Gilbert. How did you turn yourself young again?”
“She didn’t,” Margaret said, catching on quickly. “Queenie Gilbert is in a hospital bed. This woman is either an impostor or...” Margaret turned to Zinnia and gave her an incredulous look. “You knew? You met her and you found out who she was, and you didn’t tell me?”
“Zinnia told me,” Karl said gruffly. “The rest of you are on a need-to-know basis.”
Xavier grabbed Liza by the shoulder. “Is that your grandma?”
Liza’s mouth wobbled before she said, “Grandma?”
Susan, who had been quiet up until now, sidled up to Liza. She practically slithered despite being in human form, and slung one arm around the younger Gilbert’s shoulders. “She’s not your grandma, petulant child,” Susan said, her tone mocking. “And she never will be if your group can’t find the way out of this world.”
Liza didn’t seem to notice the snake-woman’s arm across her shoulders. Her focus was riveted on her young grandmother.
The group waited with bated breath to see what the two relatives would do next.
“Look at me,” Liza said to the queen. “Grandma, why won’t you look at me?”
The queen looked anywhere but at Liza. She leaned down and fidgeted with the handle of her suitcase.
Liza cried out, “If you don’t go home to where you belong, I’m not going to be born!”
Everyone stared at the queen.
Beth wouldn’t look up from her suitcase. “That’s why I can’t look at you,” she said. “That’s why...” She trailed off.
Margaret gasped. “You knew!” She pointed at the queen. “You knew the timewyrms had captured your granddaughter.”
Everyone else gasped.
Liza walked up to the queen and grasped her shoulders. “Is it true? Look at me, Grandma! You have to see me!”
The queen looked left and right, avoiding eye contact with her descendant.
“We were locked up for five days in a pile of filth,” Liza said. “How could you do that to family? How could you do that to me? I love you.”
The queen looked up at the ruined ceiling. “I don’t know you. I don’t have any children, let alone grandchildren. Look at us. We’re the same age.”
Liza released the other woman with a push.
The queen stumbled backward, tripped over her suitcase, and fell onto the rubble.
The cave was so silent, Zinnia could hear a trickle of water dripping deep within the mountain.
The queen buried her face in her hands. “I didn’t know it was you,” she sobbed. “I didn’t know I had a granddaughter. I thought—” Her voice hitched on a sob. “When they told me one of the humans they captured looked like me, I thought it was my sister coming to take me home. I didn’t know it was...”
Liza put her hands on her hips and glared down at the queen. “You thought it was Great-Aunt Katie, and you were happy to let her rot in that festering dump? You’re not the person I thought you were.” Liza turned her back on the woman. “You’re dead to me,” she said.
The queen sobbed.
Susan watched the exchange silently, her eyes flicking back and forth
between the two blondes.
The others looked around, communicating through glances. Most of them were surprised. Shocked, even. Liza was always such a sweet, happy-go-lucky person around the office. She loved her grandmother, and spoke highly of her. She didn’t tell her grandmother she was dead to her.
Gavin broke the silence. “This is a paradox,” he said. “We’re standing in the middle of a paradox. Present, past, and future are all meeting up here.”
“Two moons in the sky,” Dawna said enigmatically. “We stand in the company of two moons traveling at different speeds.”
“I don’t know what any of this means, but I’m going home,” Margaret said. “The elevator might not work, but we should be able to dig out the stairs. Once we get to 1955, we’ll figure it out from there.”
“The stairs,” Karl said confidently, striking his finger in the air. “Our next order of business is digging out the stairs. I need a committee chairperson to report back on progress.”
“This is crazy,” Xavier said.
Karl nudged the young man toward the corner where the stairs had been. “Let’s get you digging over there.”
“All right,” Xavier said, shrugging as he picked up a lantern and brought it over to the stairwell area. He pulled away one stone. “Nobody’s going to believe us when we get home.”
“I’m not going home,” Liza said softly. “I’m not going home, because I was never here.”
“Liza?” Dawna grabbed her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. Dawna turned and said to Margaret, “Something’s wrong with Liza.”
Margaret climbed over the rubble and took a close look at Liza. “Something is happening,” Margaret said, directing her comment mainly toward Zinnia. “Liza’s not entirely here.”
Karl wasn’t paying any attention to the business with Liza. “We have to get to work clearing the stairwell access,” Karl said. “We’ll get home and take her to a doctor.”
“Girl, you’re fading on us,” Dawna said.
Margaret agreed, “She is fading. Someone hold up the lantern behind her.”
Karl and Xavier were moving rubble in the corner, so Margaret circled around and lifted the lantern herself.
Liza’s lips trembled. “What’s happening to me?”
“She’s literally fading away,” Dawna said.
“You mean figuratively,” Gavin corrected. He stood halfway between the women and the men working in the corner, arms crossed. “You meant to say Liza is figuratively fading away.”
“I know what literally means, you silly gnome,” Dawna said. “Look at her!”
Everyone looked, including Xavier and Karl. It was true. The lantern Margaret was holding up behind Liza could be seen through Liza’s body. The young woman was fading, becoming a ghost.
All nine people—or eight plus the snake-woman—went silent. Liza was still there, but she was fading away before their eyes. If the queen couldn’t return to the past, she wouldn’t get married and have children who would later have more children. Liza’s nightmares about ceasing to exist would become true.
An eerie animal sound came in from the desert. It sounded like a hooting owl, only lonelier.
Zinnia looked down at the smashed pieces of elevator panel in her hands. She couldn’t give up hope yet. The split between the two pieces had a curved, snake-like shape.
The idea hit Zinnia, flaring up hope.
The snake-woman had powers. According to the villagers, there was magic everywhere in this strange land. It couldn’t be accessed by the Earth witches, but perhaps all hope wasn’t lost yet. The cave hadn’t filled with lava, after all. Not yet.
Zinnia said, “Susan?”
The snake-woman turned her head, her eyes briefly flashing red with annoyance at being addressed as Susan—or possibly at being addressed at all.
Sullenly, Susan said, “What do you want of me, witch?”
“Do you know of another portal? Another place where our key might fit so we can travel home?”
Susan scowled. “This is the only place.”
The queen, who’d gotten to her feet and wiped most of the tears from her cheeks frowned at her companion. “You’re not lying to us, are you?”
Susan shook her head.
The queen explained to the group, “She didn’t want me to leave.” The queen turned back to Susan and said, “Give us the truth, and give us your word.”
Susan hissed and then spat on the ground. The saliva sizzled as it landed and emitted a cloud of steam.
“My word is my bond,” the snake-woman said, walking up to stand nose-to-nose with the queen.
Margaret and Zinnia exchanged a look. Some things, apparently, were the same in this world.
“Is there another portal?” Queen Beth asked.
“There is no other portal,” Susan said. “This is the only place like this that I know of.” Susan stepped back from the queen and turned her head stiffly and slowly, taking in the whole group. “I was here when the artifact appeared in the mountain.” Her head didn’t bob at all when she spoke, which made her appear powerful and snake-like. “I watched our future queen arrive. It was because of my protection that she survived her first battle.”
The queen closed the gap between herself and Susan, and touched the snake-woman’s cheek tenderly. “You are my dearest friend. If I can’t go home, at least that means we’ll stay together.”
Zinnia dropped the broken elevator pieces with a noisy clatter. “I hope you’re happy now, Susan,” she said with grit in her voice. “You had your monsters destroy this place. You ruined the lives of eight people so your best friend won’t leave you.” Zinnia spat the dust from her mouth and wiped her lips with the back of her hand. “You’re a despicable, selfish creature.”
Susan turned toward Zinnia and changed into a snake. This time she was at least thirty feet long, and gleaming silver. Her body coiled around everyone gathered. Gavin and Xavier scrambled to high ground on the rubble to keep from being knocked over by Susan’s twitching tail.
Susan’s hissing head rose until it touched the jagged roof of the cave.
“You ssssspeak liessss,” she hissed. “You think I ordered this destruction? I love my friend. I love her.”
“Exactly,” Zinnia said. “You love her so much that you didn’t want her to leave. Where I come from, we have a saying. If you love something, set it free. But I guess you didn’t learn about that here, in your godforsaken Hell world.”
The snake pulled back her lips, baring fangs that were a foot long. “You are the falssssse one. You are born of demonssss. You are the godforsaken one, witch.”
Zinnia marched up to the hissing, towering snake. In the back of her mind, she knew she was putting herself in grave danger with not even enough magic to give off a static electricity shock, but she had nothing left to lose. All of them were trapped in this strange world. They were unfathomably far away from everyone they’d ever known and loved. How much worse could things get?
Zinnia spat her words into the mouth of the hissing, towering snake. “Susan, if you didn’t send those monstrosities to destroy this place, who did?”
The ground beneath their feet began to rumble. The mountain that enclosed them shook and growled. Chunks of stone fell from the former ceiling and crashed around them.
Liza screamed, and Dawna joined in.
Xavier yelled, “Earthquake!”
Gavin said dully, “Volcano. It’s got to be the volcano erupting, right on time.”
Karl shouted above the din, “Single file everyone! Proceed to the exit in an orderly fashion!” He grabbed Zinnia’s lantern and used it to light the path to the cave entrance. “Form a human chain! Grab one person’s hand with each of yours! Everyone’s getting out of here if we work together! Remember the fire drills, people. Remember your safety training!”
An avalanche of rocks tumbled down on Zinnia. She was being buried alive. She tried to use magic to push away the crumbling stone, but she had no magic, and she didn’t
have enough physical strength in her human body. The darkness closed in.
Chapter 36
Everything went dark, and then, someone was grabbing Zinnia by the hand. Zinnia was pulled free of the tumbling rocks, and dragged to the cave entrance and out into the cool, night air. Zinnia gasped a thank-you to her rescuers, Queen Beth and Susan, who was back in human form again.
“And there’s my number seven,” said Karl Kormac, nodding at the sight of Zinnia. Karl was standing on the mountain path in all his wrinkled-suit glory, lit from below by lanterns and from above by two glowing moons.
The rumbling of the mountain had ceased, and Zinnia’s ears were ringing in the silence.
Susan, who still had one of Zinnia’s hands in hers, looked the witch in the eyes and said, “I didn’t send the timewyrms to destroy this place, but I know who did.”
Zinnia pulled her hands away from the two women. She spat cave grit from her mouth, along with some blood and part of what might be a tooth. She looked into the woman’s cool blue eyes and demanded, “Who sent the timewyrms?”
“My brother,” Susan said, almost whispering. “The king.”
Zinnia looked from Susan to Beth and back again. The two were close friends, and apparently they were also related by marriage. If the king was a god, that made his sister Susan a goddess. But judging by the fearful look in her eyes, she was not as powerful as her brother.
Zinnia glanced behind her to survey the wreckage inside the cave. The timewyrms had done a fine job destroying the portal, but the recent earthquake had certainly finished the job.
Zinnia turned back to Susan and said, “When you say it was your brother, the king, do you mean the same one who spent millennia torturing the people of this world for his own amusement?”
Susan nodded.
Zinnia spat again. The chunks were definitely tooth. “Why am I not surprised?”
Susan and Beth exchanged a worried look, then both jerked their heads to look at something at the peak of the mountain. The two blonde women gasped in unison as their eyes widened.
The ground rumbled again. Zinnia turned around slowly, following their gazes. The peak of the mountain, a black triangle against the purple sky, was smoking.
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