secured, before us. His wiry hands sat on his even wirier hips. Not exactly formidable. Those snake robes, though, and his peridiote antics – those were another story.
“I sssssssssaid, thisssssss way isssssss shut.”
“Is that ssssso,” Dragon said. A stream of sparks steamed from his nose as he mimicked Obrenox’ exaggerated speech. Now face to face, or snout to hood, Obrenox cowered slightly.
I refused to look up at the hooded villain; I knew a peridiote stone lurked nearby. Not as big as the one I had encountered in the park back home – I decided that one must be some sort of guardian (or evil bouncer?) to the interdimensional portal – but one powerful enough for me to sense it. I had been able to stave off the powers of that huge nasty thing at the park; that gave me some confidence. But was it enough? I looked down at my torn shirt, my blood-stained jeans, my bandaged ankle. I had come this far, why couldn’t I take on another peridiote battle?
“Dragon!” I hissed. “I think I can take on the stone!”
I know you can, Evechild, but this is not what is needed at this moment.
I was confused, but before I could press further, I felt myself rising. Steadily, smoothly, Dragon flew ever so slightly higher until he looked down at Obrenox. We were so close to him! I felt the unwelcome heat of peridiote somewhere on him. The cloying black smoke snaked lightly around my wrists and ankles and disintegrated.
“Dragon, what are you doing … I know you have a plan,” I hissed again, “but maybe fill me in?”
On three.
“On three, what?!” My pulse drummed furiously through my body and I tightened my grip on those life-giving scales.
I remove Obrenox and you leap into the tunnel. One –
“What?! No! I can’t go without you!”
Two –
“Dragon, this is madness! I can’t –”
You’ve already made it to your mother once; retrace your steps. THREE!
With that, he arced his back and swung his neck powerfully down. He swiped Obrenox off his inky perch as his tail swooped the opposite way and launched me into the tunnel. I somersaulted in and landed unathletically on my stomach. Without looking, I scrambled to my feet and ran, only to see another wave of dronettes in the mirrored walls. I dove onto my stomach once more and crawled. I zigged and zagged along the reflective tiles with the hope the mirrors would distort my location.
It worked.
Dronettes filed through noisily above me; a few blasted errant lasers, sometimes striking down one of their own, sometimes sending a chilling ping! ricocheting off the mirrored walls. I stayed flat on mu belly for as long as I could, but the tiles weren’t flat or uniform.
“Crap, I’m stuck!” As soon as I spoke a round of lasers pinged all around me. I rolled swiftly to my left and pressed my back as flat as I could against the sloping wall. A group of dronettes buzzed past. Their little lights tilted side to side as they searched for me and illuminated the tunnel. I looked up and gasped – I hadn’t really focused on my reflection. I looked at myself in the mirrored ceiling – bloody and bruised and bandaged – and felt sick.
“Keep going, Eve. Just keep going,” I murmured to myself. I hugged the walls and crawled side to side. Moving like that made the journey through infinitely longer. Flying had been harrowing but so swift. Thinking of Dragon cramped my heart; I strained my ears to listen for any sign of his success behind me. But the roars of fire balls comingled with villainous shrieks and dronette blasts faded quickly as I advanced to the other side of the tunnel.
Still on my stomach, without daring to breathe, I reached my hands to the tunnel’s edge and pulled myself forward. My arms burned; I really have zero upper-body strength. Or lower-body strength, for that matter. I gulped, realizing I’d have to rely on my cunning and wit to pull this off…. For the first time I felt an absence of faith in my own brain.
I inched forward until I could see over the side. I was aware of silence ahead of me – welcome, wonderful silence! I peered over the precipice. The pinkish-purple swirling landscape stretched to all sides. The only way to discern where the hazy clouds ended and the ground began was by tracking the dark spots of fallen dronettes below.
“Gravity is inconsistent,” I reminded myself as I took several deep breaths in and out. “Gravity is inconsistent. You’ve already done this. Now … just do it on purpose … one more time.”
My logic didn’t calm my nerves, but necessity compelled me to action. With one more big breath, I closed my eyes and launched over the side, tumbling out of the tunnel in a little ball.
I hung in the air, then dropped, then hung. I stretched a long, needed stretch. Everything around me was still, quiet. I kicked against the stone wall and swam forward in the strange air.
“Whoa, here we go again,” I whispered to myself as I tucked my knees into my chest. I smiled as I hit the ground. “Nailed it,” I said as I smoothly rolled forward and got up before the bristly terra forma could pull me in. I ran, leapt, sprinted, jumped; I almost enjoyed myself. Fallen dronettes sunk into the pink, spongey bristles. I gulped as I cruised past a pool of thick, blue liquid. A lone hand – one of the Amythistics – lingered on the surface and then was enveloped by the sponge.
The air grew thick as I shot head-first into the cotton-candy cloud that cloaked the village of tubes ahead. For a moment, my view turned almost completely opaque, like I was trapped inside a giant bubble of pink gum. I hate pink. And gum.
I waved my hands out in front of me and blindly sojourned on until I at last felt cool air hit my fingertips. I was through the pastel fog! My heart quickened as I saw my mother’s tube just ahead to the left.
I squeezed the heliotropum stone in my pocket, resolute, maybe even relieved, and ran ahead. At the base of the tube, I pulled the gem out and frowned. Did it work as a key? I jogged around. The tube’s thick walls were smooth and without any mark. I leaned back and peered up. I was sweaty, panting, wild with eagerness.
My lovely mother just bobbed serenely in her suspending goo. I had no idea what this substance was, what it was doing to her. I knew only that the Kips had been similar prisoners, and they seemed to have come out alright. Or had they? I knew literally nothing about them beyond their allegiance to Baert. I shuddered as I imagined them as once-great independent thinkers and champion athletes, now diminished to a row of fellows in matching trousers and sly synchronized movements.
“Ok, mom, we gotta get you outta there,” I murmured as my anxiety rose.
Her pretty head dipped slightly in agreement. I tapped on the glass, knocked on the base, drew my hands along the thick cylinder. My mom rotated, limp.
I stepped back in hopelessness. Tears stung my tired eyes.
“Mom,” I whispered. “I don’t know what to do.”
I held the heliotropum out in despair.
“What do you do?!” I cried, thrusting it upward.
Immediately, the tube lit up. The stone at the top glowed verdantly. My mother’s face turned unnaturally toward me; her eyes opened and flashed the same bright green.
“Gah!” I screamed and threw the gem away from me like I had just discovered a spider on my hand.
All at once, the tube went dull and my mom’s head returned to a normal, limp, but human posture. I stared at the Heliotropum. I was scared to retrieve it, but what were my options?
I picked it up and pointed it toward the tube once more. More green glowing, more robotic honing from my mom.
“How do I open you?!” I whimpered as I held the heliotropum out.
The cylinder’s contents ebbed a bit, the gelatinous insides rocked my mother’s suspended frame gently side to side. A thought occurred to me then. Everything else Dragon had presented to me responded to Latin. The book, the spheresaii …. Maybe these crazy things would, too?
“Ap … apper ….” I wracked my brain to remember how to say open in Latin. “Come on, Eve. What was Philippa always reciting during her stupid SAT prep …. Think!”
My arm with the stone dropped as I struggled for the term. The green lights abated as if waiting for me to come up with the correct magic word.
“App … appray … apperium … aperiam … aperior,” I recited slowly, “that’s it! Aperio! APERIO!”
I thrust the heliotropum toward the tube’s capstone as I shouted over and over. It responded with a slight shake and a flash of light. In an instant, a little seam appeared and stretched down the surface of the tube. A horrifying screech, like nails on a chalkboard, sounded as the seam meandered around the base. Then, nothing. Silence, stillness once more. Finally the glass sides sighed open, and its contents spilled out. Translucent goo burst onto the ground, my mother surfing limply atop it.
“Mom!” I shrieked and lunged toward her.
She rolled onto her back and coughed. She wheezed and gasped for breath. I knelt beside her in the gelatinous puddle and took her hand. Her breathing slowed. She raised an arm to wipe the thick liquid from her face and blinked her lovely, living eyes.
“Eve? Eve!” she sputtered. “My Eve!” Her eyes bulged as she coughed, choked, and I instinctively rolled her onto her side. A wave of gooey vomit erupted from her pretty face. “Eve,” she breathed as she pulled herself up. “You’re here! You’re here? Where are … Oh, I feel strange.”
I couldn’t speak. Try as I might, words wouldn’t form. I could only cry and laugh and fall upon her in the best, gooiest embrace.
“Philippa!” she called. “Phlee! Get over here!”
I pulled back. My face darkened and I hated that my heart, just so overwhelmingly joyful, once more stung with pain. I looked down.
“I haven’t found her yet,” I said quietly.
“Philippa? Oh my god. Oh! I’ve seen her … yes – oooh that hurts – I’ve seen her. I think I remember,” my mom said as she struggled to balance and stand. “I … I saw where they put her. I … um … oh, I am … dizzy… Eve, what’s happened?” She drifted off as she brought her hand up to her forehead and blinked slowly. “Oh, Eve. It was awful,” she murmured. “They made me watch … they made me … see her … like that …in one of those things ….”
Her voice broke and she fell forward, catching herself on her knees. Her hair, slimy and moist, still fell beautifully over her shoulders. Her frame, though slender and athletic and always moving, now looked weak for the first time to me. I put my hand on her trembling shoulder. She straightened and stood upright again. We were nearly the same height.
“I can get her, I know I can,” I said quietly but firmly. “But you have to remember where they put her.”
Looking down, she nodded and wiped her face once more. She took a few deep breaths and stretched clumsily. She slowly turned and surveyed the peculiar place.
“Ok,” she sighed, “Over there. Yes. That way.”
She pointed toward another cluster of tubes, not far from where we stood. I scanned the area, still a little mystified that things were as quiet as they are. We started moving.
But then a sound, like the buzzing of grasshoppers, pricked my ears. Slowly, it gained force, speed, volume, a growing grumble rolling steadily toward us.
“We’ve got to go!” I yelled, grabbing my mom’s hand.
“Where?” she shouted, falling in stride next to me.
“I don’t know!” I shouted back.
My feet matched the desperation of my heartbeat; irregular, quick, moving too fast with importance but without a meaningful end.
“I see her!” my mom cried, pointing ahead to the right.
The sound quickened. Our pace quickened. But it caught up with our heaving hopes. Waves of dronettes poured in like a tsunami. They rose up, swooped to the side, then crashed down with all the fury of an angry ocean.
“What do we do?!” my poor mother called, running and ducking and starting and stopping in a splendid dance of dodging the dronette-sky’s fury.
“They’re not super smart,” I yelled over the loud drumming of the tiny motors, “keep moving quickly like that; they won’t be able to track you and will just run into themselves!”
Just as I said this, three dronettes smashed into each other in the very spot we had just skipped away from; the prophetic crash alerted others and a stream of lasers blasted overhead.
My mom dove onto her belly; I followed. She deftly maneuvered along the ground at a terrific pace. I followed, less deft, less terrific, less pacey. We had made it to the base of another vacant tube; we scurried around it to take cover against its mammoth backside.
“There,” my mom panted, “Philippa’s just over there.”
She caught her breath quickly and was back down on all fours, ready to move again. I was still recovering and burying the terrible thought that I felt way more successful and adept before my mom was next to me, being all fit and quick and whatnot. I swallowed my breath, holding in my panting to save face.
“Shall we?” she asked, peering back at me. Seeing my piqued face and heaving chest, she frowned, and her eyes softened. “Eve, you’ve got this.”
“I know I’ve got this,” I snapped. “I’ve been getting this for weeks now. I rescued you, remember?”
My mom looked down. My heart dropped. Lasers continued blasting about us, dronettes continued pinging tiny yellow stones and crashing into themselves. And I, I continued being an insecure little girl who wanted to prove she was a big kid.
“I didn’t mean …” her voice trailed off.
I crawled up next to her and put my hand on hers, even in the midst of this other-dimension chaos. There were a thousand things I should say and a thousand more I could say.
But I said none of them.
“Let’s go.”
We launched forward, ready to zig-zag around the looming tubes to evade notice. But we took no more than two steps and a screeching laugh stopped us in our tracks.
“Your stupid lizard is still keeping my lord occupied. So, lucky me, I get to watch your demise, front and center.”
“Front and center.”
“Front and center. Front and center.”
“Front and center. Front and center. Front and center. Front and center.”
The last three words of that dumb sentence echoed just out of sync with each other as at least a dozen Jonahs fanned out behind the original Jonah.
I groaned. Of course he was here. Obrenox’s number-one lackey.
“Why do you talk like that?” I shot back, annoyed more than afraid. Then I squared up my shoulders and took a step forward. “Get out of our way. You don’t even know what I’m capable of.”
“That’s cute. You want to choke on something again? Or cry because I stepped on your donut? Or fall asleep because you can’t handle the powers of the almighty peridiote?!” Jonah’s voice rose in tone and tempo as he spoke, his arms straight down at his sides in clenched fists.
“Try me,” I countered.
“Eve!” my mom hissed behind me, “Eve, what are you doing?”
“Gladly,” Jonah said, narrowing his dark eyes and adjusting his beanie over his silky black hair.
He raised one arm up, bending his elbow so his fist was in the air. The cavalry of Jonahs behind him automatically looked to the raised fist. All at once, Jonah opened his palm, his fingers stretched wide. As he did this, the rest of the Jonahs widened their stance, unzipped their jackets, and produced a small yellow stone. Jonah swung his palm forward, and the Jonahs advanced, in perfect synchronicity. Each one held their yellow stone straight in front of them and each one was heading right for me!
“Let’s go!” I spun around and grabbed my mom by her wrist.
“I thought you had a plan!” she called after me.
“This is it!” I screamed, pumping my arms wildly, momentarily so very satisfied with how quickly I was running.
Our serpentine run took us in and out of the rows of tubes. We discovered another expanse of the eerie cylinders that neither of us wanted to know about. Some glowed luminous and empty, others had prisoners and copies of those prisoners – some human, some gnarled, bent creatures, and some looking suspiciously like small dragons or even smaller dinosaurs. I couldn’t stop and examine. I had to keep running.
Lunge right, cut left, sprint there, backtrack now, duck here, keep going.
The thud of clone feet running in time kept a creepy drumbeat that echoed behind us.
All the while I felt the tingling warmth of the pieces of peridiote wearing me down. I heard the buzz of the dronettes. I saw the pain in my mother’s eyes at running through an unknown world toward and then away from a daughter whose safety she couldn’t guarantee.
And then a new sound entered the landscape. A rumble reverberated through the tubes; they shook ever so slightly as the powerful roar of engines and a propellor and a high-pitched pew-pew of gunshots bowled overhead.
Uncle Seb! I stopped and looked up, and nodded to those wonderful, familiar red and white stripes. The Cessna dove straight down into the gang of Jonahs. The rows of glowing eyes turned but didn’t react. The propellor mercilessly plowed through them and sprayed red. Shreds of denim flew and landed, red and wet, on the pink bristled ground. A few Jonahs were quick enough to get out of vengeance’s flying path. Others darted lamely around the stray shoes and torn beanies that fell in their clones’ wake.
My mom’s jaw dropped. She stood, dumbfounded, watching this unfold. I pushed her out of the way just as Jonah Original stepped forward and launched a giant peridiote stone in the air toward me. It struck me in the side, just under my ribs, hard. I yelped and twisted sideways and fell lamely backward. My mom lunged toward me.
“Don’t!” I screamed. But it was too late.
Mid-dive, peridiote blanketed its powers upon her. She froze, arced her back, screamed. My mom dropped forward. Hovering on all fours, she slowly, slowly brought her face up to meet mine. Through dark, gooey locks of hair that hung over her face, her eyes locked on mine and flashed yellow.
“Mom! No! It’s me!” I stammered desperately as she glowered toward me.
Jonah – the original Jonah – just laughed. An absurd, voice-cracking laugh that made me see red. All at once, I stretched both hands out, palms up, toward the beastly yellow gem. Screaming in anger, frustration, desperation, any number of things, I forced the stone up into the air and, with a nimble and powerful swipe of my arms, made the stone fly through the air and strike Jonah.
It was happening because of me – I knew I was controlling it – but the whole heinous scene unrolled before me in slow motion. The scream that thundered out of my own mouth was foreign to my ears. I saw my own hands controlling the stone’s vicious movement, and behind the rage that dictated it, I was helpless, devastated. I watched it collide with Jonah’s face. I watched his jaw twist unnaturally and spew blood and teeth. I watched his arms thrash in unbalanced shock until he toppled backward. Splayed on his back, he lay there, barely moving.
I dropped my hands like I had touched a pot of boiling water. I was confused, terrified, ashamed … and … and … powerful. I shook my head, part of me acutely aware that I had to eschew this feeling of power, of fulfillment. I didn’t dare linger in it, for it felt too great.
“Egg! Coming in, let’s get you out of here!”
Uncle Seb shouted over the roar of his plane and snapped me back to reality. I flinched in guilt; had he heard me? Had he seen what I had done? I glanced over at my crime, dizzy now. The yellow stone sat dull in a sickening puddle of blood that pooled around Jonah’s wincing body. I looked back to my mom and my heart seized in my chest. Had she seen?!
A powerful gust of wind announced the Cessna’s approach. I struggled to stay standing in the blow of its propellor. Uncle Seb hopped down and ran to us.
“Take her!” I yelled to him as I pulled on my trembling mother. “I haven’t gotten Philippa yet!”
A few dronettes cruised toward us but crashed into the still-buzzing propellor. We ducked as tiny metal pieces shot out everywhere.
“Do you know where she is?” he shouted as he hoisted my mother up into his arms like a sack of flour. I nodded. “Go, then! Go; I’ll wait!”
I nodded once more, then stopped him, my eyes heavy with fear.
“And Dragon?”
Uncle Seb looked down.
“He’ll be fine. Drahk’s an incredible fighter.”
Another round of dronettes whizzed by and a few delinquent lasers blasted past us. Uncle Seb shifted his weight as my mom stirred in his arms.
“What’s wrong with her?” he shouted over his shoulder as he shuffled back to the plane.
I didn’t answer. I knew she’d be okay now. I had to focus on my sister. She was near, I just knew it. I couldn’t see her yet, but I had absolutely no doubt I’d find her.
As the Cessna lifted off, more and more waves of dronettes shot through the air. Their steely bodies didn’t look so austere now. The pastel landscape swirled with sickening discoloration. Blood splatters, bits of green beanies, strips of blue jeans, dismembered clones, scorched dronettes, all comingled in dying embers with the stench of battle.
I dropped my head and plowed forward. I let all of my conflicting emotions converge in a burst of speed until I came to a single, filled tube standing out among rows of vacant ones. Philippa!
I gripped the heliotropum in my pocket. I thrust it forward just as some dronettes swooped down. Lasers pinged around me. Another wave came through, and another, then another, until I was surrounded. A hundred tiny dronettes hovered menacingly over me in every direction. I did the only thing that occurred to me in that moment: I ran back and forth. I sprinted and darted as long as I could to confuse the stupid machines. Lasers fired and dronettes began tumbling around me.
Back and forth, back and forth, circling around clockwise, then counterclockwise, back and forth, back and forth. My lungs burned. My body hurt.
Suddenly I felt the green gem slide out of my sweaty hand. I skidded to a halt and double-backed to retrieve it just as Uncle Seb’s plane came crashing through the sea of dronettes once more. A black shadow loomed behind him; my blood froze. Two dark wings spread out: it was Dragon!
“Dragon! Dragon you’re ok! I found Philippa! I –” I stopped as I saw Dragon’s full face. One of his eyes was swollen shut. Blood – at least, I think it was blood – trickled from his nostrils. A gash beneath his collar bone oozed something dark and sparkly. As he flapped, I saw his left wing was torn and frayed and his talon was chipped.
But he was here.
I tumbled forward and lunged for the heliotropum. I was about to call out my Latin command when the little Cessna tilted, dropped, and corrected its path again. The plane’s wing grazed Philippa’s tube and produced a crude crack. Dragon choked out several fire balls toward the oncoming dronettes. They crashed into themselves and spun, their lasers still firing.
Philippa’s tube cracked more.
Panicked, eyes wide with fear, I thrust the green stone in front of me.
“Aberio! Aberio!”
The tube creaked as a seam labored to form down the cylinder’s front. The line screeched downward and hit the crack from the impact. The crack immediately branched into a spiderweb of fissures and the tube burst open, chunks of the once-impenetrable glass dropping inside and tiny sharp flakes flying everywhere.
“Philippa!” I screamed and scrambled up to her.
The tube had collapsed on itself. Philippa lay under hunks of the glassy cylinder, protected only by some viscous blobs of the strange goo. The top of the tube, a heavy metal dome capped with a heliotropum stone, lay squarely on her torso. The gelatinous contents oozed all around her. Her mouth hung open, her eyes shut.
“Help me!” I called out to no one in particular.
The familiar breeze of Dragon’s wings joined me as I pushed against the giant metal dome with all my desperate, crying might.
“Help me!” I whimpered again and again as I wiped stinging sweat from my eyes.
Talons fell upon my pathetic trembling hands and the dome moved.
Overhead, the Cessna continued to swoop and smash as a drained pilot fired lame shots with a tiny handgun.
Dragon opened his tired wings over my sister and me. The pearlescent underside of his wings gave the air of a hallowed sanctuary; fitting, for I think I prayed as I fell atop Philippa’s still body and hugged her to me. I could feel her chest moving lightly against mine.
“She’s still breathing!” I called up to Dragon.
You must get her to your uncle’s plane. I do not know how long Obrenox will be incapacitated.
“He’s not dead?!” I screamed as I shifted to cradle Philippa’s head in my lap.
Dragon didn’t answer. I could feel the ground reverberating as dronettes relentlessly pummeled my sanctuary. I looked down at my sister. Her eyes were closed. Her cheek bled. I picked little flecks of glass out of her bangs. I gingerly combed her wet hair back behind her ears, how she would wear it.
My blood froze, I screamed. A giant shard of glass stuck out from under Philippa’s hair at the side of her neck. Hands and heart shaking, I gingerly pulled on the glass. It loosened easily and fell heavily in my hand, pristine and clear. My body relaxed and I exhaled, relieved, for it had lodged itself in the thick wool of her turtleneck.
“Oh, my dear Philippa,” I murmured, looking down at her fondly, “you’ll be so pleased to learn your ridiculous fashion probably saved your life.”
At last, she stirred. Philippa breathed faintly. Her lips barely opened as I cradled her head in my hand.
“Eve,” she respired, “I … it’s so bonkers ... you wouldn’t believe ….”
“Yes? Yes? I’m here, Phlee! What is it?!” I said quietly, anxiously, desperately, as I willed my tears to reverse their tracks.
Philippa just breathed. Lightly, dryly, her inhale so very tortured. She swallowed and winced in pain.
“It’s alright, Phlee, you’re alright. I’m here,” I said as big wet tears fell quicky and heavily. Unwilling to move my hands from where they held her, I cocked my head to wipe my cheek on my shoulder.
“Eve …Eve … I ….” Philippa started again, slow and labored. “I … wrote … the coolest … song … in my head ….”
“That’s what you had to tell me?!” I laughed and snorted through my tears. My heart swelled and hurt. This wonderful, weird sister of mine had to be ok. She just had to!
“Dragon!” I called, “Dragon! Let’s get her out of here!”
Dragon raised his arms and rotated. His wings opened slowly, grandly. Philippa choked and sputtered as the wind from the approaching plane grew vigorous. I bowed over her and hugged her against me to protect her from the propellor’s force.
“Eve … I … I feel … odd.”
“Don’t talk, you’re ok now. You’re ok, we did it, you’re ok …” I cooed quietly against her cheek.
“Let’s get her loaded! Well done, Egg!” Uncle Seb shouted as he leapt from the plane. He scooped her up just as he had my mother. Philippa’s body fell limp in his arms. I looked down where she had lain in front of me. Puddles of the viscous tube content were stained with blood. Her blood. Crimson red veins swam though the goo and feathered out.
I vomited. But nothing came out. My stomach heaved in horror and fear and everything wretched.
Dragon flung me onto his back. I looked up and feebly waved to the plane as it ascended and blasted away.
“My sister. My sister, my sister … and my mom. Mom! Mom, I’m sorry … Philippa,” I whimpered, unable to complete the thought, uncertain of what I was even trying to say as exhaustion and fear and relief and worry swirled inside me. I continued to dry-heave, disgusting panicked breaths.
Will be okay, Dragon finished for me. We must get out. You will have to compress with me through the portal. I believe I have strength enough if you can hold the aquamina against my left temple, if you please.
“Not without him,” I shouted back at Dragon, suddenly very alert.