thing,” Uncle Seb said gruffly to Baert.
“Awa’ an bile yer heid!”
“He’s trying to help, Baert, geez. What’s the alternative? Bust through that giant stone wall covered in your own puke chunks?”
“Dinnae make me radge sick again, lassie!”
“If you spew all over me, I’m leaving you. Here. In this dark, stone crevice. I swear to Christ, I will leave you if you keep wiggling like that. Be useful; wash your hands off with this.”
“Do we know how to get out of here? All I see are boulders and this wall … and I’m assuming that purple forest is behind us?”
“I’ll just turn the plane directly around and follow our path.”
“Aye, yer heid’s oot thah windae. Y’think ye ken right from left here?”
“Says the guy who can’t stand up without puking. I did the best I can, friend. You’ll have to finish the job,” Uncle Seb muttered as he threw the towel and comb at Baert’s feet.
“Um, is there any chance those little drone guys followed us?”
“Yes.”
“Aye.”
“Then should we go?!”
“Go where? This wall has to be the perimeter of the lair we’re after. Obrenox is holding your mom and sis on the other side of it. We’ve arrived, Egg.”
I swallowed hard. On the one hand, there’s a super-creepy wall to nowhere hidden inside another-dimension’s purple rain forest that may or may not be the lair of the evil overlord we don’t like. On the other hand, I really need my mom and Philippa back. Especially my mom. Ok, especially both. If I were reading this in a book, I would have arrogantly rolled my eyes and said no duh and impatiently waited for the protagonists to solve their problem.
But this was real life, and there was no part of me that felt arrogant or impatient. I felt, well, I felt cold. This crippling fear that I wouldn’t be able to follow through with the rescue or that something horrible had already happened to my mom or my sister gripped my insides with ice. It was hard to breathe, and it was harder to focus my thoughts.
“Egg, Eve, I mean, you can do this,” Uncle Seb said to me gently, reaching a gloved hand over from his seat.
“What ‘this’ can I do?” I responded idiotically.
But my uncle seemed to understand.
“You wouldn’t have met Dragon or seen the stone or controlled the balls or done any of it if you weren’t meant for it,” he said encouragingly. “Remember that.”
“Yeah, ok,” I grumbled, “but really, what is it exactly that you’re wanting me to do?”
“Uh, Egg, the thing is,” he rambled a bit, “I don’t think we’ll know until we see it.”
This disquieted me even more. I started to protest when Baert’s brogue voice bellowed out from behind us.
“DRAGON! DRAAAH-GUUUHHHHHN!”
The little elf had his face pressed against the tiny window behind the pilot’s seat. His frantic screams fogged up the window; he wiped it with his sleeve and kept bellowing. His stocky legs bounced up and down.
“I see him!” Uncle Seb confirmed, “hang on!”
As soon as he spoke the plane was in action. With a grating sound, the Cessna slid off of its shadowy shelf downward to the left. I squeezed my eyes shut and gripped my armrests. When I opened my eyes, I saw him. He wasn’t in a tube, thankfully. But this scene didn’t look encouraging by any means. Instead of the dreamy swirling purply-pink mist, this place was dark and murky and dimly lit with odd purple lights. They flickered on and off and appeared sporadically in different spots. The murkiness faded into the rainbow air that filled the rest of this strange place, like smoke dissipating in the sky.
Dragon’s massive frame hung, suspended about 20 feet above us. Thin, yellow laser beams held his mighty wings taut. I couldn’t tell where they emanated from though. Dragon’s neck hung limp; his head was down, his eyes closed. He looked so sad, so meager. He had to be in horrid pain. His talons curled under flaccid joints and swayed ever so slightly in the charcoal breeze. The black mass against the pastel backdrop beyond made my stomach flip.
“Aye, go get him then! What ye be bletherin’ about up here for?!” Baert cried as he jumped and waved desperately.
Uncle Seb didn’t respond. Instead, he flew the plane higher, higher, until Dragon was visible just below.
“Egg, get them ready,” he commanded.
For a moment, I didn’t know what he was talking about. Then it clicked. I felt my pulse race. I unclicked my seatbelt and crawled behind the cockpit to fetch the infamous brown duffle.
“It’s just me, don’t worry little guys,” I whispered to the bag, giving it a little pat as I jostled it up to my seat.
“So, Egg, that thing about not knowing what to do until you see it?” my uncle said to me.
“Yeah?”
“I think that’s now.”
Uncle Seb pushed hard on the yoke and pulled down on an overhead lever. I was buckled, Baert was not; his little body shot straight up and hit the ceiling.
“Open the bag just enough to grab one ball, but keep your hand on it,” Uncle Seb said evenly. “Baert, climb on to Eve’s lap and work the window, yes, like that. Now, on my count, Baert, pull the window open, and Egg, get that ball out there doing your bidding.”
I didn’t dare second-guess my uncle’s instructions. I reached into the duffle and felt around.
“You got one?”
“They keep sliding around!”
“You have to assert, Egg. Send authoritative energy.”
“Not my strong suit, but ok, here we go … Yes! I got one!”
“One – you ready? – two – THREE!”
As he barked the numer, Baert pulled the passenger side window open and a gush of swirling wind pressed hard against my face. Loose papers and empty water bottles danced erratically about the cockpit as the open window upset the plane’s balance and pressure. The control panels flashed red and the gauges sounded in warning. I pulled a ball out through the narrow opening and flung it as hard as I could. I thrust my left arm out of the open window after it.
The purple ball had been released. I splayed my fingers dramatically and held my palm downward as I had done in the field. The little ball made a beeline back toward me and hovered under my hand. Concentrating hard, I ignored the biting wind and the screaming headache from the depressurizing cockpit. I made little circles with my palm and watched the purple ball grow frosty. Slowly, I pulled my arm inward, then shot it out as forcefully as I could. The purple ball shot through the air and released icicles like daggers. They hit against the trees, against the stones, some faded into the misty distance. One hit a yellow laser beam that held Dragon’s wing. The beam zapped and fizzled in irritation; it supptered and went out, looking like a dying heartbeat on an electrocardiogram. Dragon’s wing fell limp and his head jerked up. He blinked heavily and then looked straight up at us with wide, wild eyes.
“Evechild, no!”
How I missed his voice! But I ignored his plea. I thrust my hand out again, calling the purple ball back to me. Uncle Seb dropped the gyrating plane lower, closer. Dragon’s weight shifted without the beam holding his mammoth wings even. His winced and roared in pain and flapped his free wing. I’m so sorry, Dragon. I am trying to be quick! I said inwardly to him. I know. This is not wise. Leave me, I can handle myself. But I think he knew I wasn’t going to give him that option. I circled my palm again, this time tracing larger circles. As I did, snow fell from the little sphere. I pulled my hand higher, and the snow encompassed a greater radius. The white flakes fell and sizzled on the yellow laser beams. With one more dramatic chop of my arm, I sent the purple ball through the air in an explosion of hail and icicles. The beams flickered, sputtered, and one by one blinked dark and vanished.
“Egg, we’ve got to close the window! I’ve held on as long as I can!” Uncle Seb called. “We must even out the pressure in here!”
I threw my hand behind me, index finger raised, to signal one more minute. Uncle Seb mistook this to mean go. The plane lunged and barreled forward; we gained altitude quickly. I didn’t have much time.
“Dragon! Just trust me! Start pumping your wings!” I cried as I pulled the cargo window shut.
I watched him through my foggy breath as he strained to flap his His eyes squeezed shut and his mouth grimaced as he visibly struggled to get his body to cooperate. Oh, Dragon, I’m so sorry, I can tell this is hurting you, I whispered inwardly to him. Just…finish….it… I’ll…be…fine, he gasped back. He pumped his wings, bigger, grander, and got closer to us. I smiled. Yes, you’re doing it!
I nodded to Baert, who crouched next to me, ready with the brown duffle bag. The spheresaii’s nervous little chatters added to the cacophony in my brain. I counted in time with my breath.
“Ready?”
Baert nodded. I pushed the window open again.
“Go! Nunc colligentes!” I ordered as I Baert swiftly opened the duffle to the small window just enough to welcome the purple sphere back inside. The little ball looped and swooped and flung itself in. Baert zipped it and threw it to the back of the cargo hold.
“Clear!” he yelled as he raised his palms overhead.
I pulled the window shut and sat down with a loud sigh of relief.
“Cutting it a little close, but well done,” shouted Uncle Seb.
This little plane lurched and sputtered upward under the strain of lost cabin. But my uncle was unphased: he smoothly navigated the upset control panels. He flipped this and pulled that and turned those. The engines relaxed and so did my heart. The whoosh of Dragon’s wings outside my window comforted me greatly.
I held my hand out behind me to give Baert a hi-five. Something warm and wet landed in my palm.
“Ugh! Baert! What the … ? Did you just spit in my hand?”
“Aye. Is that nay what y’were after?”
“No. No, Baert. It was definitely not what I was after,” I grumbled, wiping my hand on my leg.
“Aye, it should be. That’s right bonding, there.”
The plane continued up. Quickly and unwaveringly up. I looked out the window, feeling frantic again. The tubes grew faint in the distance, the round purple treetops dotted the swirling rainbowscape far below.
“Uncle Seb? Uncle Seb! What are you doing? Where are we going? My mom and sister!”
He stayed the course. The pressure on my body grew more acute. We were nearing the interdimensional portal.
“Seb! No! My mom!” I screamed at him, “We have to go back! What are you doing!? They’re still there!”
I screamed over and over, feeling a level of panic I’d never before known. I pounded my fists against the window, against my uncle’s arm. I hit the window as I scanned the shrinking dimension. She had to be down there, there had to be some sign of her. Where was she? Where could she be? Was she even ok? And my sister? Were they together?
“You have to go back! Why are you doing this,” I cried as I beat my pathetic fists into Uncle Seb’s arms. “We can’t leave them there! We can’t leave them there, we can’t leave them there.”
I repeated this over and over. I repeated it as the plane leveled and flattened through the portal. I repeated it through the bone-crushing reorganization of atoms. I repeated it as lights flashed and sound warped. I repeated it as my body decompressed. I repeated it as we emerged on the other side into familiar white clouds, whole but incomplete.
The plane hung in the air. We were safe, we had Dragon; that was worth celebrating or at least acknowledging. But no one said anything. Baert stayed quietly in the back, Dragon silently flew astride us. And Uncle Seb piloted us dutifully back to the airstrip from which we had embarked. And all the while I cried. I cried and kept up my anthem of insistence: we can’t leave them there.
By the time we landed, I hated my uncle. I hated the lot of them. I was unbuckling my seatbelt and pushing the tiny door open before the plane even came to rest on the ground. Five identical Kips jogged up to meet us; I pushed past them and ran. I ran past the hangar, past the tiny guard tower. I hopped over the low gate at the entrance, not waiting for anyone to raise it for me to exit. I ran until I physically couldn’t; both my lungs and the highway I reached stopped me from going farther. I collapsed near the side of the road. I didn’t care that the gravel hurt my legs and hands. A heavy gust of wind greeted me; I knew it was Dragon. I didn’t want him to see me crying and defeated.
“What do you want.”
“Evechild, you simply ran out of time. The plane’s engine was compromised, and, I’m sure you didn’t see it, but dronettes were swarming all about you. It was only a matter of time before Obrenox sent more guards.”
“So if I hadn’t wasted my time freeing you, I could have found my mom and my sister.”
I looked down. I immediately regretted saying something so harsh. It shot out of my mouth without my even thinking it.
Dragon was quiet. And he remained quiet for a long time. I picked up a small rock and threw it. It skidded along the gravel.
“All is not lost, Evechild. That was not your one shot at a rescue.”
A talon came to rest gently on my shoulder. I shrugged it off. Dragon turned to leave me, paused, coughed.
“Evechild. I can’t imagine the pain of not knowing combined with the pain of missing them. But you will survive this, and so will they.”
Then I felt his talon fall softly on my shoulder again. A giant tear freed itself from my eyelid fortress and rolled heavily down my cheek.
“You are so strong, Evechild.”
I felt him turn to leave once more.
“Dragon?” I said without looking up. “I’m glad you’re ok.”