Fighting Fear
Meanwhile, Chilli was about to come face to face with her greatest fear.
“Just keep moving away from her!” cried Ty as the sinister figure lurched towards them.
“B... but g... granny” Chilli sobbed.
“That isn’t...” Ty began.
“It would seem that love certainly is blind, young Tyrone. Your little girlfriend’s eyes are telling her that she’s seeing one thing, while her brain’s telling her she’s seeing something else” the sinister figure snarled sarcastically. “It makes this altogether almost too easy for me. It would make things a lot less complicated if you just handed the Bow to me. That way, you can both keep your blood where it belongs – in your bodies.” The misshapen face writhed and contorted into something beyond human as it gurgled with a strangled laugh. Her hands twisted oddly inside the gloves as the foul creature beckoned Ty to hand over the Bow.
“Whoever or whatever you are, you’re not getting the Bow, or us!” Chilli shouted defiantly. A switch had, at last, flicked on in her head. There was nothing left in the vile thing that reminded her of her grandmother.
“Welcome back!” Ty said to Chilli.
The friends dared not turn their backs on ‘granny’ as they stumbled backwards over the uneven terrain. There was no knowing what it would do to get hold of the Bow.
“Eeeww!” said Chilli with disgust as the creature started to disintegrate. The face began to split open around the eyes and mouth, and a flap of skin peeled away from the chin. It looked as though the skin had been stitched together with a thread that was coming undone. The furry black hat had lifted further off the head, and the scarf was slipping away from around the creature’s throat.
“Who... who are you – really?” asked Chilli. She had to do her best to control her voice. Fear had contracted every muscle in her body, constricting her throat and making it difficult to speak.
“Now you’re going to have a conversation with it?” hissed Ty.
The abomination’s head tilted sideways on its neck as its mouth split from ear to ear, opening up a big black void where its mouth once was. From somewhere deep in this vile orifice, a gargling noise rose, forming barely comprehensible words.
“Have you not yet guessed?” the diabolical voice asked Chilli jeeringly. “After all, your friends gave you fair warning about me. I am The Eater of your Power. I am the Invisible and the Unnamed. I am your worst enemy. Those who wield power consider me their greatest ally, for I am your most terrifying nightmare brought back into your waking life. I am whatever you think I am. I am that which saps you of love and imagination. I am... Fear!” Its voice echoed through their heads, as if it was spoken through a hollow pipe shoved directly into their brains. It was the voice that haunts dark nights and troubled minds. It was like the sound of raw meat being pushed through a meat grinder.
Chilli and Ty were past being afraid; they were terrified. There was no room left for reason or rational thought in their panicked minds. Then...
“Oof!” Their backs slammed into something hot.
“Ouch!” yelped Chilli. She pulled away from the heat that seared her back.
BOOM!
Chilli and Ty’s bodies trembled as the vibration shuddered through the object behind them. A clanking sound rang out, making their ears zing. Ty didn’t have to look behind him to see what they had slammed up against.
“We’re trapped against the pipeline!” he exclaimed.
But Chilli hadn’t heard a word. Terror had robbed her of all her senses but one – sight. Her eyes were transfixed on the figure bearing down on them. She watched with morbid fascination as the Power Eater’s human-like body disintegrated. There was now no resemblance of the human being it had pretended to be. The skin on the arms and hands had almost completely split open. But it was the head and what was left of the face that had pushed Chilli beyond fear.
Then, some invisible part of Chilli wrenched itself from her frame, and rose above her body. It hovered above her and watched her knees buckle as terror sucked the rigidity from her body. Then, suddenly, a strange feeling of detachment and peace washed over her.
An odd thought crossed Chilli’s mind. Nothing can hurt who I really am. I’m not my body. I’m forever. I’m stardust. Just like Gaia told us. Chilli felt elated, joyous even. It was just as Panacea had told them: ‘Morbidius’s real power comes from fear’. Without fear, the Power Eater had no hold over them!
Then, without warning, Chilli slipped back into her body. In that very moment, her knees and spine straightened and her hands stopped shaking.
“We’re going to beat this... this thing!” she said, flinging the last word at the revolting creature like a live hand grenade.
“How?” asked Ty, taken aback at her change in attitude.
“Quickly, look in the crystal box. Elementia must have given us something to help us” said Chilli. Ty quickly yanked the box out of his pocket.
“BLAARGH!” A disgusting, gurgling wail welled up from the creature’s throat when it saw what Ty was holding.
“Gotcha worried have we, huh, granny?” taunted Chilli.
Chilli’s words pushed the Power Eater’s anger over the edge. It literally exploded. The remaining skin on its face erupted, splitting wide open at the eye sockets and mouth. Thousands of spiders crept through the holes and swarmed around the remains of dried flesh clinging to the bones. Above what was left of the head, the hat lifted completely off the skull. The scarf unfurled itself from around the neck to show what it was – a huge spider. The strange double crescent pendant that had lain on the creature’s foul forehead was the spider’s mandibles. And the hat’s shiny black buttons were the spider’s eyes that studded its diabolical black head.
The spider rose onto its long, hairy legs to its full height and stood on the figure’s shoulders. Its body reared up with its front legs thrown back in anger as it hissed menacingly at the children. Beneath it, what remained of the figure finally crumbled to the ground. It lay discarded amid the crumpled folds of the black caftan.
Not this! Anything but spiders! thought Chilli. She felt the old feeling of terror begin to sweep over her again. But something in her had changed. She refused to give in to the fear. She faced the tide of advancing spiders and their ugly mistress squarely. She and her friends could, and would, defeat them. They just had to think and act clearly.
“Hurry up! The spiders are coming!” she urged Ty.
“What do we use?” asked Ty, fumbling with the box. “How can the snowflake, the clay or the flute help us?”
At the mention of the word ‘flute’ the gigantic spider hissed again and raised its front four legs as if it was shielding itself against the word. The wave of black that was the thousands of its comrades drew back briefly as though they had been sprayed with poison. But it was only the briefest of pauses.
Then they started running towards the children again. Despite her new-found courage, Chilli squealed as the first of the spiders came within inches of her feet. Oubaas, who had been standing in front of the children, leaped onto the hot pipeline to escape the advancing swarm. He would rather burn his paws than have spiders crawling all over his face.
Skree-skree-skree! Oubaas barked out a warning call, but it had no affect on the wave as it advanced towards them.
“The flute! They’re frightened of the flute! Use it!” Chilli screamed as the spiders began crawling over her sneakers.
“Kill theeeeeeem!” Close behind the swarm, the giant spider shrieked a high-pitched scream of encouragement to her soldiers.
“Hurry!” Chilli yelled, kicking at the advancing wave of spiders.
Ty put the flute to his lips and blew. Nothing. His mouth was too dry. The spiders were now around their ankles. One nipped Chilli’s leg through her sock. Angrily, Chilli grabbed the flute from Ty and blew across its tiny opening.
A single, pure note scythed through the sour air like a bright flame cutting through darkness.
“Chilli! The spiders... look what’s happening to them!” The spiders closest to them writhed around on the ground as if they were in pain.
“Quickly, blow the flute again!” urged Ty.
Chilli took a deep breath, closed her eyes and filtered air over the flute, this time holding the note for as long as she could.
“It’s working! Do it again!” cried Ty.
Chilli opened her eyes to see the spiders lying on their backs, their legs folded in grotesque heaps. Their leader had collapsed into a hairy lump, like a black haystack. It let out a feeble squeal of protest from somewhere deep inside the vile mound.
“Again, Chilli!” She shut her eyes and blew again.
When the musical note died away, everything was silent.
“What happened?” Chilli asked, keeping her eyes shut. If she was going to be swamped by spiders, she’d prefer not to see them crawling all over her. “Are the spiders dead?”
“You’d better see for yourself.” Ty’s tone told her the danger was over. Chilli scrunched up her face and peeked out from between her eyelashes.
Chilli gasped. “Wow! That’s awesome!”
The wave of spiders was gone. And in their place were thousands and thousands of beautiful butterflies. They lifted off from the ground in their scatter-brained butterfly way of flying and danced in a dense cloud around the giant spider’s body. Their iridescent wings glowed in the weak light and lit the sky like thousands of multi-coloured flames. It was like they had a light all of their own.
“That’s amazing!” Ty murmured. He had seen many beautiful things in nature before but he had never seen anything as spectacular as this.
A large blue butterfly strayed from the group and landed on Chilli’s shoulder. “You’re beautiful” she whispered to it, “I can see why mom and dad risked their lives to protect you.” Then Chilli turned to Ty and asked: “How did this happen?”
“Heck, I don’t kn...” But Ty’s answer was cut short.
“Heh, heh, heh” someone chuckled. “Congratoolations. You heff done zis yourself younk lady. Now zat you heff conquered your fears, you can set your imagination free. I heff alvays said zat imagination iss faaar more important zan knowledge.” A heavily accented German voice was coming from amid cloud of butterflies.
“The spider is German?” asked Ty, with a confused frown on his face. “Whatever language it speaks, that granny-thing’s still alive! I’ll smack it with the Bow if I have to” Ty threatened, ready to give it a whack on the head.
“But what if it’s gotten bigger? The Bow won’t help!” Chilli didn’t want to hang around to find out. She was ready to hit the ground running.
“Nein, nein. Don’t be afraid children. I von’t hurt you.”
Chilli became defensive. “The last thing that told us that wanted to kill us.”
“Aaaahhhh” it answered, “but you vere looking through fearful eyes zen. Und now you can zee clearly. Izn’t zat zimply wunderbar?” It chuckled again. Who, or whatever it was, was having a good time at their expense.
“If you’re not going to chew our heads off, why don’t you show yourself?” Chilli challenged. “If we’re going to lose our heads we might as well get it over with,” she whispered out of the corner of her mouth to Ty.
“Of courze! Of courze! My apologies for beingk so rude. Please forgive me, but uss scientists are notoriously abzent-minded. Here I come, ready or not!”
“Brace yourself Chills” warned Ty. He wasn’t taking any chances. He was still holding up the Bow ready to fight off the giant spider.
“Very vell zen. Zo be it. After darknezz, light!”
In answer to the command, the butterflies gathered in a wide circle, making a dazzling column of colours that rose up into the air in a colourful spiral.
“Zus vun goes to ze staaaarz!”
With those words, the irredescent butterfly on Chilli’s shoulder fluttered to the top of the swirl of butterflies. Then, taking the lead, it flew upwards to the clouds. The bright column of butterflies followed, their bright bodies turning the clouds into enormous coloured lights. The clouds dimmed, and then they were gone.
Satisfied that they had seen the last of the butterflies, the friends turned to their visitor. Chilli gasped.
“Is that...? Nah, it can’t be?” Chilli scratched her head in disbelief. Sitting in front of them was someone they both instantly recognised. Someone they’d only read about. Someone who had been dead for many years.