A Rag Doll's Guide to Here and There

by Richard Roberts

  Of course, we couldn’t get away from that for long. The hallway turned back inward, and then turned again, and again. We took a branch that seemed to head toward the center, then when that one dead ended, went back and took another branch.

  At that point, I realized that I was no longer sure which way was which. Sandy had been right.

  As she kept walking through the twisting, mirrored hallways, I tried to figure out a system. I couldn’t look for the glow of daylight Here, because once we’d reached There the night was absolute. The Dotted Line wasn’t visible over the tops of the walls anymore. Perhaps Sandy could throw me upwards, and I could try to get our bearings? Or… the stars? After all, it was night time, so the stars were always above us. I didn’t know any of the constellations, but if I could spot something distinctive, I could use it to keep us from going in circles.

  I was checking if I could recognize a group of four stars no matter which way I turned, when I heard the music. Or rather, noticed the music. I’d been hearing it already, faint and in the distance. Jazzy, mostly horns, but a whole orchestra.

  It came from the direction of a side corridor, and as Sandy stared down that way thoughtfully, I tapped her on the ear. “Miss Sandy, I believe you agree we might as well investigate?”

  “There’s nothing else to try, and it’s not Pincushion,” she said.

  On the far side of the wall behind us, maybe on the far side of several walls, because of the faintness, something crunched.

  “That was Pincushion,” Sandy added.

  Sure enough, if I strained and blocked out the music, I could just barely make out Pincushion’s squeaky and irritable voice. “I have to be close, but what does that mean in a maze? No, don’t say anything, you voiceless inanimate kludge. I’m sure I can rework the spell.”

  Pointing straight ahead, Sandy whispered rather more emphatically, “Music.”

  I whispered back, “Wait, wait! First, go back to the last intersection and check the way we came. This is a witch’s maze, and I’m starting to think it’s changing around us.”

  Pincushion’s crunching headed off in the wrong direction as we snuck down to where we’d turned last, and looked.

  “…I have no idea if this is what it looked like before,” Sandy whispered.

  “Neither have I,” I admitted, “But I suppose there’s no certain ‘no’ to the question anyway. A ‘yes’ would have been… um, not nice, but at least information.”

  “Back to music?” Sandy asked.

  “Yes, definitely!”

  The music hallway was certainly still there, and we didn’t have to go along it very far to be sure we were getting closer. Of course, we were still in a maze, and the twisty mirrored corridors kept doing their maze thing, but with a direction to orient on we definitely made progress.

  When the music got loud enough that we must be right near the source, a sharp smack cut across it. Sandy whirled around for us to see that the corridor behind us had been cut off. The walls next to it slammed back, and then more. In a loud, rattling series of thunks, we were rapidly being abandoned in the middle of a wide room.

  Until the walls nearest us slapped shut rather than falling away, closing us in a square box.

  Sandy and I froze. Tumbles let out a squeak. Among the brassy music, another voice, pure and maliciously gleeful rang.

  Iiiiin illusion’s maze

  You will wander for the rest of your days

  My traps foil the clev’rest sleuth

  ’Cause in here there’s no such thing as truth!

  The horns cut in for a playful refrain, but Sandy’s panic had already stopped. Now that things had gotten serious, her human heroness came to the fore. She stepped up to the wall in front of her, reached out to her reflection—and her fingers went through it.

  “Illusion,” she told me, her eyes afire with pride and determination.

  We were now in a straight corridor running to either side, but she ignored that, walking across and touching the far wall again… which also failed to be there.

  Sandy kept going, hurrying her footsteps, telling me as an aside, “If this keeps up and we don’t get anywhere, I’ll—oof!”

  She’d kept her arm out in front of her, but still was hurrying enough that when the third wall down proved to be solid, she stumbled forward, right up against it.

  Her reflection leaned forward out of the glass, and as Sandy backpedaled, reached out to touch her nose with a single finger.

  Sandy started to say something, but the reflection burst silently into a cloud of smoke. So did the walls around us.

  The mysterious singer loved it.

  Smoke and mirrors and light and sound

  They are the reason you won’t be found

  See my tricks, aye, See my lie

  Which leads to freedom and which sends you to die?

  Clouds of smoke, some yellow or purple or red, faded away to reveal the huge, mirror-lined room that had been forming around us already. Some of the clouds were accompanied by showers of pretty sparkles that, alas, also disappeared.

  The room itself was odd. Wait, no, I couldn’t support that description. It was odd to me, but I had no experience with the kinds of things I was seeing. They might be depicted in their perfectly normal context.

  Lots of tables. Long, low ones had footlocker style trunks on them, smaller tables had cloths draped over their surface. One table floated in midair, within a pair of floating hoops. A hat, wand, and pair of white gloves lay on one table. Three upside-down clay cups and a bowl of peas—of all things! — lay on another. To make that stranger, the same displays of hat/wand/gloves and cups/peas were reproduced in huge duplicates sitting out on the floor, so big that Sandy could have stood under them. More trunks stood upright, and one was astonishingly decorated, thick and gold and with its surface carved like a man with an extremely silly pointy beard holding candy in fists crossed over his chest.

  Some of the decorations did not look at all safe. Jagged edged saws and gleamingly pointed swords stood in racks next to some trunks, and there was a big thing that looked like a wooden frame whose only purpose was to hold a hundred-pound blade threateningly off the ground.

  In one of those illusionary—no, the word was illusory, wasn’t it? — corridors we’d traded the dirt flooring for nice grey tiles, but I had no complaints about that.

  The voice started to sing again, but Sandy interrupted it. “None of them!” Striding forward with a straight-legged, purposeful gait, she walked over to the trunk next to the box of swords, opened it up, and stepped inside. As soon as Tumbles scuttled in with her, she shut the door.

  It was quite dark inside, which made me realize the whole maze had been well lit, but without any obvious source like the lanterns in the woods. The trunk wasn’t completely dark, because it had slits in the surface and sides, which let in a little light. From their size and shape, I concluded unpleasantly those slits were designed for the swords to be stuck through.

  Sandy didn’t wait for them. She probed and thumped her hand around the back of the trunk until something clicked. It swung open like a second door, and we stepped through into another generic mirror maze hallway. The door snapped shut behind us, and when I looked back, there was no sign it had ever been there—just our magnified reflections in the thousand and first mirror.

  …how many mirrors had we seen? Each was roughly half as wide as it was tall, and—

  Really, Heartfelt, now you’re being so intelligent you’ve circled around to being a fluff-head again. Figuring that out could take hours, there would be no reliable answer, and Sandy would need help meanwhile.

  A happy carillon of bells tinkled in the air. Most of them faded away quickly, leaving the loudest, deepest bell ringing alone several more times.

  No immediate danger threatened. The maze wasn’t quite the same now. The floor was still tile, and off to our left I saw a little wooden bridge over a stream. Decorative, but we’d have to tear up the planks to get to the water, and ev
en then it flowed through thorn vines on either side. Not actually useful.

  That left me free to pursue my curiosity. “Miss Sandy, how did you figure the puzzle out?”

  She gave her head a little shake, bouncing pale hairs around my face. “It wasn’t a puzzle, just a trick. An obvious trick, if you try to think like a witch.”

  Um… hocus pocus?

  My haphazard attempt must have shown in my expression, because Sandy laughed, then clapped a hand over her mouth. “Sorry. I hope I didn’t offend you, Heartfelt.”

  “I’m not entirely certain you could,” I answered, trying to look as serious as the thought deserved. If she did say something that would normally offend me, would I change to be someone who wasn’t offended?

  That must have been the right thing to say, because she not only smiled, she handed the food box to Tumbles, pulled me down off her shoulder, and held me in both arms. “I can’t, can I? You’re so safe, Heartfelt. I don’t think you know how gentle a person you are, even more than the other clothlings.”

  I didn’t know what to say, but my heart glowed bright enough that words were superfluous.

  Rustling my cap, Sandy started walking down toward the bridge, returning to a more causal explanation. “That whole challenge wasn’t witchy. No witch just leaves you to guess like that. There would be rules to follow, or hints, but all she did was tell us it was an illusion—so I knew that’s all the whole thing was, just a trick. I’ve read fairy tales, and that’s how witches are. If Belle Tower was actually evil, she would have killed us or cursed us or both, not bothered putting on a show.”

  I was agog. If it could, my mouth would have been standing open. I pulled it in tight to almost a dot, so it would look like a tiny “o.” “Oh, my. I’m glad you find me comforting, because you are smart enough that I don’t think you’ll need a guide much longer!”

  She squeezed my cap, grinning widely as we crossed the bridge, whose wooden boards made a soft thunk thunk underneath her shoes. “Aw. That’s not true, though. We’re smart in different ways. I’m good at understanding things, but you’re good at thinking about them. When I try to think through a problem, I get so many thoughts I can’t tell them apart. You point me the way.”

  That raised my painted-on eyebrows. “What an interesting notion. An intellectual as well as physical guide. Although I confess, it isn’t like I know Here or There very much better than you, Miss Sandy.”

  “The difference between ‘not very much’ and ‘none at all’ is huge. Besides, you’re fun to talk to.”

  Oh my. Well. I giggled, and did some more glowing.

  “Am I fun to talk to?” asked Tumbles.

  With a laugh, Sandy crouched down, hugged him with one arm, and rubbed the top of his head so hard his neck sank down a few inches. The rapid spinning of his pointy tail suggested this was more than good enough answer.

  Straightening up, Sandy looked down a side passage, then behind us. “I don’t hear the music anymore.”

  I cocked my head. No, even the bells were quiet. We were back to silence, with only such faint background noises as the splash of water under the bridge, and the creak of thorn vines behind the mirrors.

  Standing there, listening carefully, we all nearly jumped out of our fabric when the first crunch sounded a couple of rows over.

  “No, stop that!” shouted Pincushion from the other side of the wall.

  Sandy pointed down the side tunnel, which led in exactly the opposite direction from her. I nodded emphatically, and we briskly and quietly headed that way. If our footfalls had been audible by themselves, Pincushion’s complaint, “Not the other way! And I thought the fluff head was stupid!”

  The new hallway we’d chosen was a twisty one. It turned left, and then right, and then left, and then left again… and I realized we were headed right back toward Pincushion herself.

  This suspicion solidified when I heard another crunch, a crash of broken glass, and harsh, tearing noises. Pincushion screeched, “You almost threw me into the thorns! You ripped off… you…”

  For several seconds, she dissolved into helpless laughter, and had to choke them down to get actual words out again. “You look so dumb with half of you torn off. You’re still better than the old dummies. That human is doomed. Plus, I got the spell working!”

  Her voice changed, more serious, a deliberate shout of challenge. “Do you hear that, human? I know I’m close! Just surrender and go back Elsewhere. This isn’t a responsibility thing. Princess Charity will care for Here and There, it’s what she was called Here to do. I’ll look after Heartfelt. I’ve been doing it all my life.”

  I propped my hands on my hips. “Flattering as that is, does she expect you to abandon poor Tumbledown?”

  Sandy winced, and for a moment I was worried I’d forgotten to whisper—but no, I’d been very quiet. Her face suddenly haunted, she whispered back to me, “I need encouragement, Heartfelt.”

  “Anything.”

  Her neck twitched, and she looked pained as she explained, “There is something I’m afraid to do because it will make me feel bad, but it’s the right thing to do.”

  Oh, my. A moral issue. Well, I would help her work through the important questions—and hurry, because the next couple of crunches were definitely around a corner we could see from here. “Does this thing help people?”

  “Yes. It especially helps the person that I feel like I’m hurting.” Oh, my. She really looked pained. I hoped it wasn’t me she needed to do something to.

  “Are you really certain about that?” I pressed.

  She stared at me, eyes wide, and took several deep, rapid breaths. Then her eyes shut, her whole body went still, she swallowed, and shivered. “Yes,” she whispered in a puff of breath, and when her eyes opened, she had the poise of a heroine.

  From way down around the corner, Pincushion announced, “Okay, but this is your fault! You’re not giving me any other choice!”

  Kneeling down, Sandy stroked her hand down Tumbles’ spherical back. “Tumbledown Q. Rollover. Are you ready to be a real dragon?”

  Oh, my. Surely even Sandy couldn’t do that.

  He didn’t doubt for a second. He just looked up at her, jaws wide and eyes bulging in wonder and hope. “Me? I can be a dragon?”

  She pointed at the nearest wall. “Look in the mirrors, Tumbledown. You already are.”

  Sandy stepped back, and Tumbles looked, as she directed. So did I, and…

  Oh, my.

  Well, the mirrors did distort people, and the brightly colored dargon looked big enough in the mirror opposite us, but his stuck-forward head stuck into the next mirror ahead, and I could hardly recognize him. His beak, with a hook I’d never seen on him normally, dominated the whole space, tiny little bud teeth lengthened into savage fangs.

  He took a step forward. The reflection stretched, so far that I could hear Pincushion ask with sudden worry, “What is that?”

  Tumbles opened his mouth wide again, and blew flame. If I looked straight at him, it was just a little green flicker, quite noble and imposing for a dargon, but still just a big candle flame.

  If I looked up at the mirrors, I saw fire. Fire reflected from mirror to mirror, washing down the hall. Everywhere I looked, green rippled along the walls, and hot air billowed back along the passage to stir Sandy’s hair.

  Pincushion shrieked. “Put it out! Put it out! Coldus! Watterissimo! Extinguishimate!”

  “Rar!” growled Tumbles. The tunnels naturally echoed just a little, but this sound bounced, louder and louder, until it turned into an animal bellow from the gold and ruby scaled monster that stretched up and down the hallway’s reflections.

  “We’ll catch her on the other side of the maze. Go! Go go get me out of here before that thing catches up!” wailed Pincushion. Rapid crunching followed, all retreating away from us.

  Giddy at his victory, Tumbledown bounced from foot to foot in a wobbly dargon jig, letting out happy little giggles. His reflection didn’t dance. It l
ooked around the corner, looked back at me, and laughed a long, sinister, “Heh heh heh heh heh.”

  I grabbed Sandy’s collar in both hands. “Is this a trick, Miss Sandy?”

  She shook her head, still hard and solemn and heroic. “No. This is one of those miracles you tell me I can do. I could only perform it in the right place, at the right time, and that is here in this labyrinth of illusion. Eventually, he’ll be all dragon.”

  Tumbledown clasped stubby hands over his muzzle, eyes glistening with tears of joy as they looked at his glorious, sleek, hulking, reptilian, monstrous reflection. “You mean if I stay, that can be me for always? I can be that scary?”

  His reflection looked at him, and said something. Thank goodness, it didn’t have its own voice yet without amplifying Tumbledown’s, but the dargon’s grinning nods made it clear he heard and understood.

  Sandy placed a hand on Tumbles’ back, and pushed him a step forward. “You’ve been loyal to me since we first met, Tumbledown Q. Rollover. This is the reward I promised. Be a dragon. You’ll need a new name soon, but I’m not ready to give it to you, yet. For now, go and get her.”

  Tumbles threw his head back, and yelled, “Rar!” His reflection reared up, and for a brief moment it flickered in the air where it stretched above the mirrors. Visible or not, its screech of predatory fury was entirely audible, and I felt the wind blow when the little dargon flapped his stubby wings.

  Swiveling around, Tumbledown threw his short arms around Sandy’s leg, hugging her tight. “You are the best.” That done, he waddled down the hallway and around the corner in pursuit of Pincushion, covering the distance at a speed more appropriate to his draconic reflection than his own busy trundle.

  Sandy turned away before he was out of sight, standing very still with her arms crossed over her chest and my legs trapped beneath them.

  Her face was expressionlessly blank, which itself was highly revealing. I patted her on the cheek. “It’s okay to miss him, Miss Sandy. I’m sure you can get him back whenever you want.”