The Keystone

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DEDICATION

For anyone who likes tattoos but is too afraid of getting one because it hurts, a lot. I would know, I have one tattoo and it hurt like hell. Otherwise I’d get more. Some people are tough and can deal with tattoo agony, they’re brave sorts. Or maybe they like pain? Possibly that too.

CHAPTER ONE

My parents should have listened to me. I said I didn’t want to come on this stupid tour of North Wyche castle. Now here I stand on the highest crumbling tower. The stars stark and clear in the black night sky above my head. The roof that was once part of this castle crumbled away long ago. It’s just me standing here in the cold open January air.

I’m alone and I have a deep sinking feeling in my gut that I’m about to die.

And it won’t be of natural causes.

There’s something happening in the air. Something happening to the air all around me. I can barely breathe. My feet feel as though they’re glued to the floor and I can’t move my body in the slightest. I’m trapped in place by an unseen force. Every breath I take is a struggle. An invisible weight presses my whole body inwards.

It’s snowing fat flakes and one lands upon my eyelash. My vision pales. The pressure is too much. I can only see the one snowflake blocking my vision. I stare harder and harder at it until it comes into focus.

For a split second I can see the frozen water on a microscopic level. I’m aware of the fractals that are the framework of each crystallized flake.

The snowflake drifts away on a breeze, so I know there’s still air around me. The problem is; I’m finding it more and more difficult to breathe any of it in.

I can see in front of me again. I don’t think I’m seeing clearly though. The atmosphere is hazy.

The snow falls slowly all around. I stand stock still. Not a smidgen of movement from my body, apart from the rise of my struggling chest that’s gasping for air.

Suddenly, cold punches my gut. I’m able to move again and I can breathe. The air feels light and pure and I suck in down in great gulps. I feel like I was drowning, even though I’m nowhere near any great body of water, let alone under it.

Whatever just happened I am so over it. And I am so totally getting the hell out of here.

I step through the open doorway of the tower. Something gleams above my head. When I look up I discover the source of the light.

The highest stone in the centre of the arch is glowing.

When I tilt my head down again I can see across the battlements and I make a beeline for the corridor on the left. There’s snow piled up in there about two feet deep, but I won’t let that stop me. I’m getting out of here right now before the paranoia of seconds-ago kicks in again.

I don’t want to feel like I’m going to die.

“Jaclyn.”

Someone’s said my name.

“Who’s there?” I stop running, turning round and round, leaving chaotic footprints in the fallen snow.

That voice. It came from…

Everywhere.

The stone is still glowing at the top of the tower doorway arch. I fling myself back around and when I attempt to flee again my face meets an invisible wall.

No. Not invisible. There’s something there. Something blurry, foggy even.

It’s a wall of steam. It’s dissipating. There’s someone standing there and it takes me only a second to realize it’s a mirror. I can see my own reflection in a great big outdoor mirror.

My long blonde hair spills out of the furry hood of my coat I have pulled up over my head. I can see the whites of my blue eyes because my lids are open so wide in fear.

But wait. Something else is there. Something is happening to my face! It’s transforming!

That’s not me. The mirror-like fog is gone. Someone is coming towards me and it’s a boy.

A… umm… it’s some guy. A stranger. Someone with a black hood over his head.

He looks me straight in the eyes and once again I find myself unable to move from this spot.

Brown eyes. He has light brown eyes.

“Jaclyn.”

When he speaks my name it’s like a punch in the chest. The only thing that’s solid about him are his eyes. Everything else is foggy, as though that misty mirror is still clinging to the air all around.

I watch as he takes off one of his black leather gloves. His palm extends and the world turns upside down.

“What’s happening?” I cry out. My vision is swirling impossibly. I can see as though I’m looking out the back of my head, while still being able to view the person standing in front of me.

The glowing stone at the top of the doorway. His outstretched palm. Something’s happening there. A swirling of mist, a gathering of snow. A ball of light erupts just above his hand. A floating golden ball of light. Within that light something twinkles even brighter.

A glint of something. A golden something in the shape of a key.

The key hovers there above his palm enveloped in light, and in the next split second he moves so fast I don’t even see it until he’s got hold of me.

One arm is around my waist, the other has gripped my right hand.

“Take it.” He squeezes and a searing pain erupts in my palm.

I scream and fall to one knee.

“I’m sorry, Jaclyn. This is the only way.”

He holds me there. I look up at him. I sense the glowing light from the stone behind me. Pain courses through my hand as he continues to grip it tight.

And then suddenly, with a vacuum whoosh of air…

He’s gone.

I’m left kneeling on one leg gasping for breath. Snowflakes fall. My hand is in agony but I bite back anymore screaming. Instead I grit my teeth as hard as I can and I look at my palm.

Emblazoned upon my skin is a white emblem in the shape of key.

My hand steams with heat. Fog swirls up from my fingertips, hitting my nostrils and eyes like heavy vapour. Everything swirls around and around and this time I’m absolutely overwhelmed by dizziness.

I fall flat on my back and I have no energy to do anything but lie here and watch fat snowflakes fall from a dark grey sky onto my eyelashes; one, by, one.

CHAPTER TWO

I’m home now. Sat in my bedroom on my bed holding my wrist and staring at my hand. We left Wyche North castle an hour ago and I didn’t tell my parents anything. My palm stopped hurting entirely and I don’t know why, but I decided to keep the incident to myself.

All I can do now is stare at this burn on the inside of my hand. I haven’t even taken off my coat. I’m just sitting here with the hood still pulled up over my head.

The burn doesn’t really look like a burn. It looks as though someone tattooed the shape of a skeleton key into my palm with white ink.

I don’t know how this is possible. I can’t even fully process what happened in my mind.

Subconsciously, I hear the home phone ring downstairs. I only slightly register it because it’s strange that the home phone would ring at all. No one ever calls our landline. Mum, Dad, and I all have our own iPhones, obviously.

Thump, thump, thump.

Someone’s coming up the stairs.

“Jaclyn!” My father shouts from the other side of my closed bedroom door. “Lllamar por teléfono a mi querido!”

Dad’s learning to speak Spanish. This is his mid-life crisis. Mum was suspicious for all of a day when she didn’t know where he was one evening, a few weeks ago. She suspected he was having an affair. She followed him, found him at South Worcestershire College, and decided to join him on his language course.

They now both keep pressuring me to go to college or move out because they claim they’re retiring to Spain soon. They’re both forty-four years of age. I don’t believe for one second that either of them are capable of retiring. Not when they both love their jobs so much.

Squeezing my hand shut tight into a fist, I go to the door of my bedroom and open it partially. I stick my normal hand (the non-burned one) through the virtual crack in the door and wave for my father to hand me the phone.

Dad says something incomprehensible to me in Spanish.

I reply with the same thing I always say. “Grassy arse,” instead of ‘gracias’. Just for a laugh.

He hands me the phone and seems perfectly happy with my reply. I close the door and speak into the handset. “Hello?”

“Hello there.” A kind and very chirpy female voice on the other end of the line. I can actually hear her smiling from just those two words she says. “Am I speaking to Jaclyn Williams?”

“Yeah.” I reply.

“Congratulations Miss Williams your application for Cambridge university has been accepted!” Okay now the woman is shouting and smiling. I pull the receiver away from my ear as she continues loudly. “Every year we have students chosen for our specialty program and you’ll need to be able to meet with us prior to official acceptance…”

She drones on and on about certifications and processes in an endless stream until my ear is absolutely ringing. I actually have time to throw the phone down onto my bed. I can still hear her squirrely voice piping from speaker. I remove my coat carefully with my non-burnt hand, and kick off my shoes.

When I pick up the phone again I’m determined to interrupt this lady. “Did my parents apply me to Cambridge university?”

“Oh!” The woman seems surprised that I’m suddenly speaking instead of her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I didn’t apply to attend Cambridge.”

“Oh!” She yelps again. Then says nothing, which is odd.

“It’s like ten o’clock at night as well.” I grumble, opening and closing my fingers over my strangely burnt palm. “Why are you calling so late?”

“Because your appointment is tomorrow morning, like I said!”

“My appointment?”

“Yes, to meet with the Professor!”

Everything this woman says is so flipping screamy. “Okay, I’m hanging up now.”

Suddenly, I’m feeling very tired and I don’t want to carry on with whatever scam call this is. I’m not an eighty year old woman. I’ve read about phone call bank scams on Facebook, and stuff. I don’t know what this lady on the phone is doing, but it’s definitely not legit.

“Wait!” Crazy lady screams. “You will regret this!”

Click.

What the?

I stare at the handset.

She just hung up on me?

What I’ll regret is ever having answered her call in the first place. What a weirdo that woman was.

Clicking off the phone I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and make a fist over the burn on my palm. I’ve got to do something about this. The entire incident at North Wyche castle is making my head crazy. Is this white tattoo-looking mark of a key, even real? Or am I still hallucinating like back at the castle?

There’s only one way to find out.

I’m going to have to show my parents.

But wait. I can’t show this to them. They’ll think I got a tattoo and they will absolutely freak out about it.

I know!

Jumping across my bed I grab my iPhone off the nightstand. I take a picture of the key-shaped image burnt in white ink upon my palm. And then I send it to Marigold, my best friend forever.

She replies immediately by text message:

I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU GOT A TATTOO BEFORE ME!

Followed by many cryface emojis.

I text her back, in less excited lowercase:

Haha, yeah. I just did it on a whim!

I’M GOING TO GET A TATTOO TOMORROW!!

No don’t do that!

WHY NOT?!!!

This is going downhill fast. I need to call her. So I ring her instead because my fingers are already tired from left-handed texting, which I am not used to doing at all. I’m right-handed, but that hand is a bit sore at the moment.

When Marigold answers I’m speak before she even says hello. “I regret this tattoo!”

“What? Why?”

“Because I Googled after I got home just, and I found out that it’s going to fade in less than two months.”

This isn’t an outright lie I’m telling Marigold. I have looked online about tattoos on palms and the bottoms of feet, before now. I just never in my life thought I’d need to recall such useless information. The point is, I can’t tell Marigold the real reason I’ve got a key seemingly tattooed onto my palm. I don’t even know if what really happened, did really happen.

Maybe I was drugged somehow, at the castle. Drugged and then tattooed and I hallucinated the entire thing about some dude appearing and burning a key into my hand.

“Sorry, Marigold. I gotta go.” I grumble into my phone.

“Hang on!” She shouts back and my ear starts ringing again. “You can’t just show me your new insane tattoo and then cut me out of you life!”

“I’m not cutting you out of my life! I just don’t feel well.”

This is the utmost truth. My mind is spinning and it’s affecting my stomach in bad ways.

“Oh, okay then.” Marigold hangs up on me.

I’m not surprised by this in the least. When I look at my phone screen there’s a good bye text message already there, spelled out only in emoji symbols and smiley faces. Mainly sticky out tongue emoji faces.

That brings a smile to my face. For a split second normality washes over my psyche. It doesn’t last long though, for when I open my fingers confusion reigns again.

What is this thing and how the hell am I going to get it off my palm?

CHAPTER THREE

It’s morning. I’ve got work at New Look down at the Malvern Shopping Park. It’s the sixth job I’ve had in the six months since getting my A-Levels results. I get bored at jobs easily, and I seem to be working my way down the row of shops in order of where they start with Boots.

Sliding the alarm off on my phone, I sit up in bed. After falling asleep again in a seated position, I wake with a jolt and run into the bathroom. I shower quickly, get dressed into my work uniform of black top, black jeans, and black shoes. But not before putting on red matching bra and knickers underneath my clothes. It’s my personal and private way of rebelling against the system.

I sit down at my dressing table, smear on foundation with both hands like lotion. Regret such haste, run to the bathroom, wash my hands quickly. Return to the dressing table, rub off all foundation with makeup remover wipes. Put on a little bit of eyeshadow and mascara. Smear on lip gloss. Whip my long blonde hair up into a massive donut bun on the very top of my head, and run downstairs.

My hairdo is the other requirement for working at New Look. Donut buns. If a female employee has short hair they are given fake hair extension buns to attach to their hair. It’s insanity and I’m pretty sure only the Malvern New Look requires it. I’ll just bet it’s at the request of my horrible new boss. My sixth horrible new boss. All of my bosses have been horrible in one way or another. I think horrible bosses are the main reason I’ve only managed to stay at a job for thirty days maximum.

Once I’m in the kitchen I find Mum’s already there. She has her blonde hair up in a normal non-donut-shaped bun that isn’t sitting directly on top of her head. She looks nice in her thick striped grey business sweater dress and thick wooly grey tights. Her heels are grey too.

I count aloud. “One… two… three… four.” While pointing at each band of grey on my mother’s dress. “There are only four shades of grey in your ensemble, Mum. Hardly a tribute to your favourite author E.L. James.”

My mother (EMBARRASSINGLY) adores the Fifty Shades of Grey books.

Mum turns around from the kettle she’s just switched on. “And what is your hair in tribute to today, Jaclyn? You’re not a man. Leave the top knots to the boys with beards.”

Good one. My elderly (not really) mother is up to date on her comebacks. I never would have thought someone her age even knew what a manly top-knot was!

“Blech.” I complain with a noise, rather than a word, whilst pouring myself a bowl of Krave cereal. I may dislike big beards and top-knots on guys who I might want to kiss, but what I do love to put near and into my mouth is chocolate. And lots of it. Krave cereal is chocolate injected chocolate yumminess, which usually holds me over until I can grab a chocolate muffin from McDonald’s during break time. I’ve got to keep my curves somehow, and I find consuming chocolate by the proverbial truckload, is the best way forward of doing just that.

“Buenos dias!” My father enters the kitchen in his pajamas. His work uniform for the day. His attire of choice around the house, most days. My dad is a writer. He’s also a rock climbing instructor at the Geo Centre in West Malvern. Dad says his career choices perfectly balance each other out because if he just sat around writing all day every day, he’d eventually end up bed-ridden obese. Mum tells him that’s not possible as she wouldn’t allow anyone to bring him tonnes of food in bed.

There’s a funny look on my father’s face.

“Something the matter, honey?” Mum appears to be concerned.

Dad is the picture of internal struggles. Red pressurized face.

“Are you trying to take a dump in the kitchen?”

He doesn’t hear my glib question.

Finally, Dad let’s out an exasperated breath of air, reaches into the pocket of his thick blue towel robe, and whips out his phone. He pokes the screen and shouts, “té?”

“Eh?” I raise an eyebrow, questioningly.

Dad finally looks up and makes eye contact with me. “Spanish for tea is té and I couldn’t remember such a simple word?”

“Aw, love.” Mum slides her arms around Dad’s waist. “Te gustaría algo de té?”

“Si.” Dad replies, and I have no idea what he’s just agreed to.

Mum makes tea, so I’m guessing their foreign conversation is revolving around that this morning. She gives me a full mug and as I reach out I notice something on the palm of my right hand.

Time stops, or at least slows down.

There’s a mark on my hand in the shape of a white outlined key. My eyes bulge. A tingling erupts in my hand and I jerk it away.

Mum yelps and time resumes its normal rotation. My hand hits the mug and tea goes flying everywhere, splashing all over the countertop bar between the kitchen and the dining area.

Grabbing my wrist, I apologize quickly. I turn around and notice movement in my peripheral.

“Who’s that?”

There’s someone out in the garden.

Correction.

There are someones out in the garden.

People wearing all black on a hazy January morning. Their stark apparel stands out in the brightness, like the black ensemble I’m wearing. Except not like me really, because they’re wearing ski masks that cover their faces!

“What on earth?” Mum comes round the breakfast bar.

Dad turns round and the second he does there’s an almighty crash of breaking glass.

One of those black-clad someones has broken through the sliding glass double doors from the back garden!

Mum and I both scream and jump into each other’s arms. We’ve backed towards the far wall and Dad does something I’ve never seen him do before in my entire life.

He puts one hand onto the countertop bar, leaps up and springs over and as he does the long back of his robe spreads and flows out in an arc. He lands expertly on his bare feet and that’s when he too, screams.

“Dad!” I cry out, knowing full well he’s probably cut up his feet on all the fallen glass.

Talking of which, the fallen someone who came crashing through the doors is on the floor. Dad jumps on top of him, pinning him down. “Call nine, nine, nine!” He shouts.

Mum screams. “What’s the number? Oh!”

She’s confused. I’m confused. Everything is confusing and it all gets ten times worse before I can reach into my back pocket and dial the police.

The black-clad people in the garden pile into our house and before I know it we’re all subdued against our will.

A woman wearing a black skirt suit with stiletto heels tramps over all the mess. She stalks toward me with a huge grin on her face from ear to ear. Her black hair looks recently dyed with a distinct darkness plastered around her hairline. “I did say you’d regret your decision, Miss Williams.”

It’s her. The woman from the weird phone call last night. I can hear the smile she’s now showing on her face.

I’m backed against the wall, the dining table on my left, the kitchen bar on my right, and the crashed window straight in front of me. My parents are struggling in the arms of their captors. The woman is still moving towards me.

“Where is the key?” She seems angry, but that grin is still plastered on her face, like some kind of female Joker from a deck of poker cards.

Key.

She just mentioned a key.

“I know he gave it to you.” She snarls, and looks happy about it. “If you want your parents to live, tell me where the key is.”

Rage explodes inside me. How dare she threaten my parents. She wants the key? I’ll give it to her.

And that’s just what I do. I slap the smile right off the bitch’s face! “You better not even think about hurting my parents! ARGH!” I scream and jump on top of the woman, who goes down in a heap.

I’m like a berserk cat, scratching at her eyes. My legs and arms fling around so crazily none of her henchmen can get a grip on me.

“Get her off me! Get her off!”

Zzzzzzzap.

Suddenly, my whole body explodes with pain. Surprisingly though, through the blinding pain I can see the woman beneath me is in the grips of agony too.

I’m kicked in the side by someone’s booted foot, adding to my pain threshold ten fold. I fly off Smiley Woman and land on my side, still unable to move, still convulsing with pain.

“I said get her off me first, you idiot!” Above me I can see the SW has grabbed something from one of the soldier blokes.

It’s a tazer. I’m being tazed and if it doesn’t go off soon, I’m going to lose consciousness from the sheer agony of it all.

Finally, I’m released from the torture. The breath goes out of me and I roll onto my face. “Oooohhhh.” I moan, fully wishing I could pass out now.

“Hahahahaha.” The SW laughs. “Foolish girl. Did you really think you could win against a fight with me?”

“I was doing quite well until you cheated with that tazer, you wuss.” I speak mumbled into the floor, but I’m sure she heard me.

Someone kicks me again, forcing me to roll over. I can see my mum and dad and their pained expressions. Mum has tears rolling down her cheeks, but they make contact with the gloved hand that’s pressed over her mouth by her captor. The same goes for Dad. He can’t speak either.

“Where is the key?” SW screeches. “Tell me, or get another shock!”

She doesn’t have to tell me twice, this time.

I open my right hand and push it toward her face.

“Ahhhhh.” The smile returns to the SW’s face and she looks orgasmically at my palm, which totally creeps me out big time. “I should have known.”

Yeah, I’m guessing this is the key she’s so desperately seeking.

“Take her hand.”

Grunt.

Something happens and I hear Mum shout. “No!”

But she’s subdued again and one of the soldiers is on me. Another black-clad man whips out a huge black sword. Where had he been hiding that on his personage? I don’t know but I don’t like the look of that gleaming black blade. It’s a metal so dark it seems to suck all light into it, yet how can it also be so shiny with sharpness?

“Do it.” The smile on SW’s face appears as though it might split her whole head in half, sideways.

I’d scream, but a soldier has his hand pressed down over my mouth.

The other soldier brings his blade down so fast, I don’t even see the movement until the sword is flat on the carpet.

“Did you miss?” SW is still grinning as she pushes the sword wielding soldier aside.

I guess she was expecting to hear me scream. I fully expected to scream, but apparently getting my hand chopped off doesn’t hurt.

“Nooooo!” SW screams, baring all her huge white teeth. She bends down, grabs my wrist and shoves it near my face. “Where did your hand go?”

I can’t quite believe what I’m seeing. I’m looking at my right arm and it is missing a hand. My hand is gone and the end of my wrist is oozing something metallic. Swirls and strange symbols made of what looks like liquid silver drift up my arm, stopping just before my elbow.

Kablamo!

Something in the garden explodes. The SW goes flying back seconds later, her grasp on my wrist torn away instantly. She hits the wall and goes down. She’s unconscious but her nasty teeth are still showing through parted lips.

Boom. Bang. Bash.

All the soldiers in the dining area of our house, go down one by one, blasted off their feet.

There’s a fracas going on in the garden and when I sit up Mum and Dad have already launched themselves toward me.

“Oh Jaclyn, your hand!” Mum cries.

“I’m okay.” Pushing her away, I’m trying to see past the strangling hug she’s enveloped me in.

And then suddenly I don’t have to see because my mother is ripped away from me once again.

It’s her, the Smiley Woman. She’s grabbed both my mother and father by the necks of their shirts. She bares her teeth wickedly and before I have time to act they’re gone.

Vanished into thin air in a puff of white smoke and a flash of electricity. The lines that were connecting me to the tazer she was holding are lying on the floor. I rip them out of my back with my left hand, my only hand, and jump up onto wobbly legs.

When I look out into the garden I see a tornado.

No wait. It’s a person. A man. He’s wearing a black tuxedo with coat tails that whip out as he turns and pivots, fighting back each soldier who approaches him. There’s a long tophat on his head and I’m surprised it doesn’t fall off when the man leaps and somersaults through the air.

He takes them out. He fights down every last soldier until there’s none left standing but him, holding a long black stick.

I hold my handless arm aloft. “My parents.”

It's all too much. I can't bear what's happening. My mind spins and I lose my balance, falling towards the countertop bar between the dining room and the kitchen. I lean on it to support myself, my handless arm splayed out on the flat surface. It looks strange, and I hear crunching sounds behind me.

It's the oddly dressed man in a top hat and coat tails morning suit. He moves around into the kitchen and I can see his face. Sort of. Everything is kind of spinning. I don't think my brain is working properly right now.

"I can help you get your hand back." The man says.

"My parents. Where are they?"

"I can help you get them back too."

My breathing is rapid and shallow. I keep staring at the blank space where my hand is supposed to be. The strange metallic symbols and swirls on my wrist and arm, are gleaming like an oil spill on the surface. If I move my head in the slightest, the gleam moves as though its a living liquid.

“I can’t…” My voice trails off, I start to slip.

The man moves quick. He’s by my side in an instant, catching me before I fall.

“Listen, Jaclyn.” How does he know my name, I wonder? “I’m going to take you somewhere now. Some place safe. You need to get your wits about you, and you can’t do that here.”

“But my parents.” The energy has gone out of me, but I have to find out what’s happened to my mum and dad.

“They will be okay, for now, but we have to hurry. I can help you, Jaclyn.”

I don’t know what to do and I don’t think I have much choice in the matter. The man is leading me out into the back garden and I haven’t got the strength to resist him.

We’re standing in the blasted out doorway when he bangs one end of his black stick onto the brick patio. My vision fades and just before I lose sight completely I see something surprising indeed.

Someone else appears on the grass.

It’s him. The boy in the fog who was at North Wyche castle. He sees me through the haze and lunges, but I don’t know if he catches up to me because everything has changed in a flash.

Brown and white clouds push and pull at me. Blue lightning zaps all around. I feel like I’m inside a cyclone, but when I blink just once, everything is settled.

The man lowers me carefully onto a deep red leather sofa. I cradle my handless arm in my lap and try not to fall asleep. The room we’re in is circular. Every wall is covered in books on shelves. It’s a bit dim in here and it looks like we’re in someone’s study. There’s a deep red wooden desk near the massive window that travels from ceiling to floor, taking up half nearly half the room. The carpet beneath my feet is deep red too. Everything is matching red, like the colour of blood when in contact with oxygen outside the body. Nearly dead brown, but still retaining it’s reddish hue.

On the desk is a lamp with a green glass shade and a brass pull for turning it on and off, so that’s different.

“Where am I?” Leaning forward, I bend over my arm that’s covered in silver patterns and symbols. I don’t want to see the space where my hand should be. I’m so embarrassed. I don’t want this strange man to look at my arm either. I don’t know why, but it’s affecting my mind deeply.

“How am I supposed to find my parents?”

The man is still trying to see my arm. I know he’s looking at it. “Degan was right, you do have an empathetic mind.”

What’s he talking about? “Who’s Degan?”

“He’s the one you saw in your garden just now. He’s the one who could have got your parents back.”

Wait. What?

I sit up straight. My long blonde hair was up in a ridiculous bun this morning. Now it’s hanging loose and tangled past my shoulders.

“I thought you said you could get my parents—”

My words are cut short by the man in the top hat taking one step back. He swirls his stick once and brings it up to point directly at my forehead. I feel my eyes cross. I can see the rounded end of the point right before it erupts into light and I lose consciousness instantly.

CHAPTER FOUR

When I wake I don’t know where I am. I don’t know who I am, for a moment, and I especially don’t want to know that I’m missing a hand.

Too late.

I’m fully conscious now. Kind of unavoidable, considering the fact that I’m sat upright bound to a wooden chair.

“What the hell?” Struggling against my bonds, I wiggle around and thin chains dig into my arms, legs, and middle. I’m tied to this chair with such delicate looking chains, like strands meant to hold the lightest of pendants as a necklace. And yet, I can’t break free, the chains are incredibly strong.

My attention drifts back to my handless arm. The intricate silvery patterns that flow up from my wrist, make my eyes bulge in wonderment.

“There’s no point in trying to break free.”

The man in the tophat comes through two wide open double doors, at the far end of this very large room. It looks like an elaborate French ballroom, if my mind is at all capable of taking anything in right now. The chair I’m sat on is dead centre in the middle of the vast hall.

“Oh.” Top Hat walks toward me. “You’re not struggling against the chains then. Well, if you were to struggle you’d see they’d get increasingly tighter, so I wouldn’t if I were you.”

And just because he said so, I do the opposite. I don’t much like being chained up, now that I know what it feels like, and I’ve never liked being told what to do.

So I start struggling and I discover it’s true. The more I wiggle about, the tighter the chains become. I grit my teeth against the pressure, but I won’t stop.

“What are you doing?” Top Hat man is still wearing his stupid tuxedo. “I just told you not to struggle.”

With a look that could kill if it had magical powers, I glare at him dead in the eye and wiggle about even more. The chains tighten around my middle so hard, I think I’m about to pass out. I hope I do pass out before the chains break my ribs, because that would really hurt.

“Dammit girl!” TH waves his staff. That’s what it is. It’s a long black staff with elaborate carvings all over it. Carvings like symbols similar to the ones on my arm.

“Puuhhh.” I breath out heavily when the chains loosen all of a sudden.

I don’t wait a second to react. I break free of the bonds that TH obviously withdrew with his staff, some how. This day is so weird. Is this the same day?

Moving forward I push my left fist into TH’s belly.

“Oof.” He flies back and lands on the floor, me on top of him. His staff clatters on the tiles and rolls away.

Boop.

I bop him on the forehead with my slivered wrist, and he goes out like a light.

“Shiiiiiiiiiiit.” Hissing through my mouth, I roll off TH. “Are you dead?”

He groans.

“No, not dead then.”

Taking a moment to catch my breath I stare at my handless arm. I’m not going to sit around forever though. This guy had me tied up and that is so not cool.

Jumping to my feet I make a beeline towards the double open doors. My silvered arm feels weird pumping at my side while I run, because I can feel a slight breeze on the end where my wrist cuts off.

Stopping in my tracks in the doorway, I look right, then left along a wide corridor. There are tapestries hung along the walls with giant oil paintings too. I decide to go right as that’s where there’s light. If I were to head left I’d be running into darkness, so no thanks to that.

Every painting and tapestry I pass seems to have a theme. I’m looking at mega colorful art work that shows landscapes of serene and flowering beauty. It’s like running past different artist’s interpretations of The Garden of Eden. They blur by so fast in my haste it’s like streaks of vibrant colour in my peripheral.

There’s a floor to ceiling window straight ahead. When I reach it I have to stop running or I’ll smash into it. I wouldn’t crash through it, not unless I had superpowers, or something. It always irks me when regular people are portrayed as smashing through windows on TV shows and movies. Running into a window is like running into a solid wall. Just because you can see through it, doesn’t mean you can jump through it.

Crash!

The glass in front of me explodes! But it does so inwards. I put up my good arm and the newly disfigured one, trying to shield my face from flying glass. In the next split second I’m thrown off my feet.

I land hard on my butt and it really hurts, sending shooting pain up my spine. I lie flat and wait until I can see again when the pain subsides to a dull tingle.

“Oh my butt.” I complain, staring up at an elaborately carved ceiling high above.

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

Someone is walking toward me very quickly over broken glass. A sound I’m familiar with after our back door windows were blown out at home.

“Jaclyn.”

That voice. It’s slightly familiar.

Blinking rapidly I discover I now have company. “You.”

I sit straight up.

It’s him. The boy from my vision in the fog at North Wyche castle.

“I’m so sorry!” He bends down on one knee beside me and puts an arm under mine. I’m lifted easily to my feet where I wobble, unsteady. “I came to rescue you! But not like this!”

He what now?

“Who are you and why did you explode a window in my face?” I can’t help but ask.

“I’m Degan, and I swear I didn’t know you were standing in front of that window. I didn’t think Mr Tivnys would let you go traipsing around his castle…”

I think he’s still talking about things my mind isn’t exactly capable of processing right now. Not after everything I’ve been through.

“Look.” I pant from lack of energy, leaning on him for support. Whoever you are, whoever that crazy tuxedo guy is, I don’t care. I just want to get to my parents and Mr Tophat, or whatever, mentioned your name when I asked about them.”

“Yes, of course I can… umm…”

Umm? There’s a pause from this Degan guy.

“It’s a bit complicated though, but I can definitely help you—”

His words are cut off by a whooshing sound. Wind blasts my hair and it flies in front of my face like a blonde swirl. I blink and out the blown open window I watch what appears to be a firework exploding in the sky outside.

Degan doesn’t say anything. He pushes me bodily towards the big smashed out window.

“What are you doing?” I cry out as we both stand on the ledge. I had no idea we were up so high. “Are we on a cliff?”

We must be, I can see down for what seems like miles below, a thin flowing river. We’re facing another cliff too and that’s when something utterly disastrous happens.

“Hang on!” Degan shouts, pulls me close and pushes us both out into the void.

“Argh!” I scream and scream as we fall, wind blasting in my face. Only, it doesn’t necessarily feel like we’re falling straight down.

When I dare open my eyes I discover my doubts were correct.

“What the hell?” Looking up I see a black wire above. “Is that a zip line?”

Whoosh.

Another blast of wind near my hair that’s stronger than the breeze we’re zooming through.

Bang, bang, bang.

Someone’s shooting beams of blue light at us. Each blast explodes near the cliff side we’re heading towards.

“Oh noooooo!”

This is it. We’re doomed. Any second now and we’ll be splattered against the hard grey rock of the flat cliff face dead ahead.

Tink.

And just like that my toes touch gently onto solid ground.

The world goes dim again and it’s not because my eyelids are clamped shut. When I open them I can see why I’m still alive. We both are, and we’re in a cave. A cave I couldn’t see as we approached the cliff at speed.

“Come on.” The boy who just ziplined me across a massive ravine, grabs the only hand I have left. He lets go of the zip handle and we hurry into the gloom of the cave until the booms from outside can no longer be heard behind us.

CHAPTER FIVE

It’s dark in here. I mean really, really dark. If I still hand a right hand I wouldn’t be able to see it, should I have decided to wave it mere inches in front of my face. My eyelids are peeled so wide open, in attempts at seeing something, anything, I’m starting to get a headache.

“This is scary.”

“I know, Jaclyn. Just trust me. I can see.”

He can? How?

He has hold of my hand. This Degan guy isn’t pulling me too quickly along in this dark, dank, dripping cave. And for that I’m grateful. I don’t know who this stranger is, but he got me away from Tuxedo Man who’d tied me to a chair, so I’m inclined to trust him for the moment. Besides? Didn’t TM say Degan was the person who could help me find my parents? I guess we’ll have to wait and see. How I’ll see again, is beyond me. I don’t know how deep this cave goes and the further we travel into the mountain, the darker it’s going to get, if that’s even possible.

After travelling for what seems like miles underground, I need a rest. I’m freezing cold with no coat, I’m only wearing my work uniform and it involves a t-shirt that doesn’t cover my arms to either wrist, not even the one that ends there and doesn’t continue on to fingertips.

Shivering, I stop walking. “I have to rest.” I tell the Degan guy.

“Here.” Slowy, he moves me toward the rough surface of the inner cave wall. I feel along it with my only hand, and sink to the ground.

There’s a rustling noise and suddenly a warm jacket is placed around my shoulders.

“Thanks, but won’t you be cold now?”

“I’ll be fine.” His voice sounds strange in this echo-less close environment. More shuffling noises and now he’s sitting beside me. I’m so cold I can feel the heat radiating off him and I gravitate towards it, towards him.

What seems like a split-second later, I’m blinking my eyes open in the darkness. I think I fell asleep. This Degan guy is definitely asleep next to me. I can hear him softly snoring.

There’s something else though. Another noise. A faraway sound that’s definitely coming closer to my ears.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Tap. Tappity. Tap.

It sounds like tiny hammers tapping rapidly against the very walls of this cave.

But who else is in here? Or what else could be making that noise?

“Degan?” I push against his shoulder with my one hand. “Wake up please.”

He stirs next to me in the utter darkness.

“Oh sorry.” His voice is craggy. “I didn’t mean to nod off.”

“Ssshhh.” I shush him. “Can you hear that?”

“Hear what?” He whispers back.

Nothing happens. The tapping sounds have ceased.

“Never mind.” I get to my feet by feeling with one hand along the wall. “I guess I was imagining it. So how do we get out of here?”

“Follow me.”

Yeah, that’s what I’ve been doing. Why am I so convinced this guy even knows where he’s going?

As I walk along with my eyes closed, hand in hand with a stranger, I have questions spinning in my head. When I attempt to spew them all out at once, they bottle-neck on my lips as gobble-dee-gook, and I get very tongue tied.

“Sorry, did you say something, Jaclyn?”

“Yes, I did actually. I want to know how you know my name.”

“Right, of course you do. Well, it’s simple really. Actually, it wasn’t easy getting hold of the device that enabled me to find your name, but once I had it, there it was.”

Now who’s tongue-tied? I have no idea what he’s talking about!

“You used a device to get my name? What? Have you been stalking me on Facebook, or something?”

“What book?”

“What do you mean what book?” Facebook! Everyone in the world is on Facebook!”

I hear him snort before he replies. “That may be true for this world, but I’m not from this world, Jaclyn.”

“Yeah, I figured you’d say something like that.”

My hand was chopped, disappeared, and my wrist covered in silver symbols. I’ve seen enough today to convince any girl that we’re not dealing with things ever known inside this existence.

“And you’re okay with it?”

I stop walking, unable to answer his question. His hand tightens on mine and he halts too.

“Listen.” I tell him. “Do you hear that tapping noise?”

“Ah.”

“Eh?”

“That would be Raknah.”

“What nah?”

My head snaps round when the tapping draws closer. “There’s light!”

It’s coming round the bend in the cave tunnel, getting stronger as the tapping sound nears.

“What is that noise?” I’d plaster both hands over my ears, to block out the strange sound of tick, tick, tap, tapping, but I have only one hand, so such an effort would be pointless.

“Maybe you should wait here, Jaclyn.” Degan sprints toward the light. I can see him as a silhouette, backlit by whatever source of light is coming closer. He rounds the corner and I hear gentle whispering. The tapping noise has stopped and it’s not getting brighter any more.

After a few minutes listening to the strange whispery voices, I have to know what’s going on. Degan hasn’t returned and I’m worried about that light going out. I didn’t realise it while stuck in the dark, but now that I can see, I don’t want to face the blackness again.

Creeping forward I head toward the light source and those strange whispers. The closer I get the less it sounds like voices talking. It’s the strangest sound I’ve ever heard; like wind rustling up autumn leaves in a courtyard, endlessly spinning round and round like a dust-devil.

When I peek round the corner and discover the source of the light and whispered noise, I really wish I hadn’t.

The devil is in the wind and I’m staring right at it.

A creature like none I’ve ever seen before. A woman, yet not a woman really. She’s albino white with long silvery hair flowing all around her head as though she were under water. I know she’s a woman because she’s stark naked. But that’s not important, is it? No, not important at all.

What my mind can’t quite grasp is the other abnormality about this strange creature.

She has two human legs, but she also has a lot more.

That’s where the tapping came from. I’m sure of it now.

I’m looking at an albino woman with more that two legs, because sprouting from her back, hips, and pelvis are many more legs indeed. Glowing white legs that hold her perched above Degan. She’s stood on the wall like a giant albino spider and the light is literally coming from her.

She’s the source of the gentle glowing light.

I don’t know if I should be amazed or repulsed at the sight of her.

She has eight massive spider legs and one of them is tapping lightly against the ceiling of the cave. She’s looking at Degan and the whispering sounds are coming from her mouth. She seems to be talking to him in a very strange language indeed.

I’m mesmerized by her presence. I don’t realise I’m drawn forwards until I slip on a loose pebble that scrapes noisily across the ground.

The spider woman’s head snaps up. She sees me. Her face splits into a wide grin, showing an abnormal amount of teeth. Too many teeth. Glowing white sharp looking teeth.

I know that grin.

It’s the woman who took my parents and without thinking I react, running forward. “What did you do with my parents!”

“Jaclyn.” Degan turns, reaching out an arm to stop me, but he’s too late.

The grinning spider creature leaps off the wall of the cave. Her brightness flashes quick and before I know what’s happening, she’s on me.

I go down flat on my back, the wind knocked out of me. I can’t breathe. I’m surrounded by long pale spider legs, pinned to the ground. Her smiling face comes closer to mine, her mouth widens into an impossibly wide maw. Before I can suck air back into my lungs she clamps down on my neck with her teeth and I die, die, die! A thousand prickly deaths.

CHAPTER SIX

I’ve had a few moments to compose myself and in that revelation is the obvious fact that I’m still alive.

Maybe my brain over-reacted just a bit. The realization that I was probably going to die, mere seconds ago, apparently brought out the dramatic in me.

Such as it is, I now have time to reflect on my circumstances. How much time I’ve got, I’ve no idea, but if Degan’s interchanging facial expressions are any indication, I’m guessing it’s not long.

I’m still lain upon the floor of the cave tunnel. The glowing white spider beast woman is on top of me, her teeth are no longer embedded in my neck. On the contrary, my stump is pressed against her neck and it’s immobilized her. The silvery swirls and symbols are alight; brighter than the glow coming off the spider woman.

Degan is mouthing words to me, but I can’t hear him at all. I guess I’ve gone deaf, which completely takes the biscuit, if you ask me.

As if losing my parents and my hand weren’t bad enough. I just found out I wasn’t dead, but now I’ve lost my hearing?

Bollocks to all of this!

Shoving hard, I push the spider woman away. She goes flying, crashing against the wall, falling to the ground in a heap of long tangled legs. The glow goes out of her skin at the same time my arm stops exuding light. Were plunged into darkness once again and this time it feels as claustrophobic as a thick velvet shroud.

If I thought I couldn’t breathe when the air was punched out of my lungs, it’s ten fold worse at this very moment. I’m suffering a panic attack of the utmost extreme, and if I can’t find a way out of this tunnel soon, I’ll die of premature heart failure!

Something penetrates the darkness. It’s light. A tiny little piece of starlight. It glows brighter and the space around it lightens. I can see my surroundings again and the reason I can is because Degan is holding a flashlight in his hand.

“Have you had that all this time?” I jump to my feet, but soon realise that was a mistake. I wobble unsteadily and my left hand goes to my throat. Feeling around with my fingertips I find many holes and wetness. When I pull my hand away it’s covered in my own blood.

“Jaclyn.”

Hisssssssss. I breathe in slowly because my neck stings. “That thing bit me.”

Degan comes closer. He steadies me with his arm.

“Why didn’t you use your light before?” Now that he’s near, I can see it’s not exactly a flashlight he’s holding. It’s a miniature glass dome in his palm —with a flat gold bottom— that’s emanating a soft glow. Symbols and swirls run over the glass surface, not unlike the symbols of silver on my wrist and arm.

“For this exact reason.” Degan lifts the light to my neck. “I didn’t want to attract the attention of Raknah.”

“You knew that thing was in here?”

He nods and looks at my neck.

“Well thanks for warning me. Now I’ve been bitten by that monster and I’ve probably got spider rabies or something!” I clamp my one hand back onto the tooth wounds on my neck. “What the?”

“What the indeed…" Degan’s voice trails off.

I’m feeling around with my fingers, but there are no more holes on my neck. I’m not sensing a single bite mark.

“Am I still bleeding?”

Degan shakes his head, no.

“Give me a mirror.” I demand of him.

When he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a large gold locket, I’m not the least bit surprised. He’d held back on me about the light in his palm, so I haven’t a clue what else he might have stored in all the pockets of his clothes.

Now that I’ve noticed, he is dressed a bit strangely. I don’t know any boys my age who would ever wear leather trousers. Degan’s are black, with many pockets. The jacket he gave me to wear is black leather too, but it’s not exactly shaped in any style I’m familiar with. The style is decidedly cut to fit his frame like a glove; a torso glove.

Talking of which, the other thing that fits him tightly is the black button down vest he’s wearing over a long sleeve black shirt. When I peer closer the vest appears to be black leather, but it’s got things attached to it, along with many, many pockets filled with who knows what?

“I knew you’d have a mirror.” I snatch it away from him, but the thing is closed, so I’m forced to hand it right back. “Open it.”

He gives me a pitying look that I just don’t need right now. And to make matters worse, he opens the locket with one hand. When he puts it back into my palm the thing is big enough to fill my hand. I go to look into the mirror side, but the image on the other inner side of the circular locket, grabs my attention instead.

“How did you get this pic of me?”

“I was going to explain that. It’s how I found you, Jaclyn.”

“This locket is how you found out who I am?”

He shakes his head. “It’s how I found where you were when I gave you the key.”

The key? “You mean the key you burned into my hand?” I shriek, a little too loudly. If that spider woman thing in the corner isn’t dead, I certainly don’t want to wake her by screaming.

Gathering my wits about me I look at the reflection of my neck in the mirror on one side of the locket.

There are no teeth marks in my neck. This is all too much for my mind to absorb. I don’t know what’s going on. Did that spider woman even really bite me? Well yes, there’s blood, and lots of it.

Sighing loudly, I look at the Degan boy’s face, under lit by the light from the little glass dome he’s still holding in one hand. Shadows play across his features. He’s not saying much, just answering my questions patiently.

And why is he doing so, I wonder?

“I’m sorry about that, Jaclyn. It was the only way, and if you’ll allow me to explain…”

He can tell me whatever he wants to. If I decide it clears things up, I might believe him. Whatever he tells me though, the only thing I really care about is finding my parents.

I give the locket back to him and he stores it somewhere in his vest. “Are you going to start by telling me why that woman who took my parents now has a billion spider legs? And why she tried to eat me? And why my neck is now healed?”

He opens his mouth, as if to speak. Then shuts it again. “The woman who took your parents was Raknah’s sister.”

I’m so confused.

“Maybe the explaining can wait.” I look over at the shadowy figure of the multi-legged creature on the floor of the cave. Shivering, I wrap my arms around my middle. I hold onto my silvered stump that’s hidden in the long sleeve of Degan’s jacket. I can still sense the gleam of silver in there though. “I really do need to find my parents and I want to get out of this cave.”

The look on Degan’s face worries me. “That might be a problem.”

“Why?”

“Because to get out of here, without going back the way we came, means we’re going to have to wake Raknah.”

Oh for goodness sake.

So that’s why this Degan guy has been so patient with me. Stalling, answering my questions. He knew all along we weren’t going anywhere any way! He also knew the spider woman wasn’t dead, which is more worrying than any look on Degan’s handsome face.

Where did that come from? What a time to admit to myself that I think this guy is cute. His looks don’t exactly matter right now, dammit. There are more pressing concerns at hand.

Hand. Why do I have to think up that word all the time, now that I’ve only got the one?

“Wake her?” I hiss in a loud whisper. “Are you crazy? I don’t know who or what that thing is, but I do know that waking her up probably means she’ll try to kill me again, and I’m just not cool with that! Not cool at all!”

Leaning against the wall of the cave, close my eyes for a frustrated moment. “Maybe you should just go ahead and explain things to me.” I don’t know what to do. What to think. I’m sure the longer we’re here though, the longer it means I don’t know what’s happened to my parents.

“You’re too cold, Jaclyn. We need to get you out of here now.”

Yes. He’s right. I am cold. I’m freezing. I’m confused. I don’t know if I’ve processed anything he’s said and the only way out of this stupid cave is probably going to be the death of me.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“We are going to have to wake Raknah now.”

I don’t like what Degan is saying. I don’t like what he’s been telling me for the past fifteen minutes. He says that I will be able to immobilize this Raknah person with the power of my stump. Well, he didn’t call it my stump, that’s how I’ve been referring to it, even though he keeps insisting that my hand isn’t gone forever, it’s just momentarily some where else. I’m not sure what he means by that, and I don’t have time to press for answers. I don’t have the first clue about my parents location and right now their well-being is top most on my to-do list for this crazy diabolical day.

Hang on.

“What day is it?”

“Come again?” Degan holds the little dome light towards my face.

“I fell asleep at that castle with the top hat guy—"

“Mr Tivnys.”

“Whatever.” I wave my one hand at his interruption. “When I woke up I was tied to a chair inside a huge ball room, but I don’t know how long I was asleep for.”

“And how did you get to sleep, Jaclyn?”

I hesitate answering. I don’t think he believes I was just randomly taking a nap inside the very place I was being held captive.

“Fine.” I relent. “I wasn’t sleeping, that Mr Tivnys freak blasted me with the end of his staff thingy.”

“Right.” Degan nods his head once, as if it all makes perfect sense now. “Well you weren’t out for long. It’s still the same day.”

Phew. Thank goodness for that.

I let out a breath of relieved air, because the next breath in I take is totally going to stress me out. “You’re one hundred percent sure my Stump of Unimaginable Power can subdue that spider woman thing?”

He snorts in reply. “I never said unimaginable power, and I certainly never called your arm a stump. I told you your hand is some where—"

“Yes, yes.” I interrupt him. “My hand isn’t really chopped off, but I don’t really care about that now, my parents are missing and I need to find them!”

“And that’s the first thing we will do once we get out of these caves.”

It takes me a few more minutes to psyche myself up, but eventually I’m ready. In a wide foot stance. I’m pointing my silvered stump arm towards the unconscious spider woman, just like Degan told me to.

“Ready?” Degan holds his little light aloft.

“No, but go ahead.”

He places the glowing dome on top of the spider woman’s white head of hair. She wakens immediately, her eyes wide open. Her skin starts glowing as though some kind of dermatological light switch has turned on under her flesh.

She hasn’t moved any of her long legs. They’re curled around her like when a spider is playing dead in your kitchen sink so you don’t turn on the tap and swirl it down the train. Or like a dead spider.

This woman isn’t dead though, she’s very much alive and the light from her body makes the little dome on her head seem dim in comparison.

“What now?” I ask Degan, still pointing my silvered stump at the spider woman.

“Raknah.” He speaks to her. “I was asking for your help before. If you will assist us in leaving these caves, the luminitus is yours to keep.”

Her eyeballs roll up into her head and I wonder if the creature is actually about to die for real this time.

But no, she’s making a move.

I tense up, aiming my handless arm like a weapon. Flipping a long stray blonde hair away from my eyes with my left hand.

Degan and I both watch as one of Raknah’s human hands reaches up to the top of her head. She grabs hold of the little light dome. Her eyeballs roll back down as her hand comes down. She smiles, showing large long pointy teeth, whilst staring at the glowing dome. Her grin widens, her mouth opens and if she weren’t so mesmerized by the glowing object in her hand, I’d worry she was about to pounce upon me again.

Actually, that’s exactly what I’m worried she’ll do. I’m starting to wonder why I chose to believe Degan when he said my stump would help.

Raknah’s mouth is wide open now. Every tooth in her jaws looks fangy, like a mouth full of vampire teeth. Only they’re all fangs.

Gulp.

In one swift motion the spider woman pops the dome into her mouth and swallows it whole. She unfolds her long spindly legs, stands to a full height of about twelve feet, and her skin begins to glow even brighter.

“What’s happening?” I mumble out the corner of my mouth at Degan who’s taken a few steps back toward me.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.

Strange whispering sounds emanate from the toothy mouth of Raknah, right before she speaks English. “I will take you safely out of the caves.”

Her voice sounds like it’s inside my head. Not loud, just low in sultry octave as it oozes through my mind.

Tap.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Raknah clings to the walls of the cave by the sticky tips of her spider legged feet. She gives me and my arm a wide berth, so maybe there’s something unknown in this silvered stump of mine.

We follow behind her for what seems like miles and miles downwards.

“How are we supposed to get out of here if we keep travelling deeper into the mountain?” I lowered my arm long ago because I was getting tired of holding it up, to be honest.

“Trust me, Jaclyn.”

Yeah, he’s said that before and considering everything that’s already happened, I think I’ve done my fair share of trusting him to the utmost by now. But what else can I do? I don’t know where I am, I don’t know what’s happening to my body, I don’t know why I’m so chilled out about following behind a woman who’s capable of easily scaling walls because she has eight extra legs with which to do so!

Shaking my head makes my long blonde hair fall in front of my face, when I next look up I see something that takes my breath away.

The cave tunnel has opened up into a cavern that’s as big as a town viewed from atop a cliff. Because that’s where we’re standing. At the open mouth of a tunnel. A hole in the wall, and as I look along the cliff wall that circles round the cavern below, I see more holes with small protruding outcrops.

I’m looking at a massive underground circular cavern, the walls and ceiling are pocked with holes that I’m sure lead to more tunnels just like the edge of the one we’re standing in. The reason I can see all this is because there’s soft opaque light coming from below. From what source exactly, I can’t quite tell, but it’s bright enough for me to see with my naked eyes.

This should amaze me. Surprise me even. Maybe I’m just at a loss for words, though it’s still strange how non-chalant I feel about this crazy environment.

“Now what?” I turn to look at Degan.

Raknah is a few paces below, stuck against the wall. There’s no need for her to abseil down to the floor of the vast cavern, not unless she can spin webs.

Can she spin webs?

I shudder to think, not really wanting to find out how she does if she can. Spider’s webs come out of their butts and Raknah woman’s butt is in the shape of a human arse. If she starts pooping sticky silk out of her bottom I think I’m going to be violently ill. That, or I’ll laugh my non-web-spewing butt off at her.

Seriously, my mind is out of control. I’m daydreaming at a moment when I don’t have time to be doing so. My mind is in such a fog and I can’t wait to get out of these caves into fresh air above to clear it.

“We jump.”

Degan’s answer startles me.

I jump back from the tunnel opening. “Are you joking? I’m not jumping down there.”

He’s looking down over the edge. “Don’t worry, it will be safe soon.”

My curiosity is piqued and I move towards him again. I follow his gaze downward and my suspicions are confirmed.

Raknah can form webs, and I’m glad to see she doesn’t do so out of her ass hole.

It’s quite an impressive process actually. If I were dreaming —which would make a lot more sense at this point— my subconscious would never in a million years dream up the sight I’m witnessing right now.

The spider woman is working a massive web with her hands. The silk oozes from her palms. She makes wide and small weaving gestures with her hands and fingers and something starts to take shape against the wall below.

After a few more weaving moments Raknah uses her long spider legs to perform a jump so quick, I don’t see her movements until she’s landed on a rocky lump about ten meters away from the cliff wall, protruding from the cavern floor. The entire surface of the massive cavern is covered in these lumps. Some big, like huge buildings, some smaller, like the size of little sheds.

I watch as Raknah makes more weaving gestures, quickly with her glowing hands. When she’s finished I can see what her efforts were intended for.

She’s spun a gigantic web directly below. One that hangs between the rock wall and one of the larger lumps protruding from the ground.

“Now we can jump.” Degan steps out into thin air.

“Wait!” I go to grab him, but I make the mistake of reaching out with my right hand. A hand that’s no longer there. My arm swishes through the air and I lose my footing. I fall fast and quick and when I land onto the sticky spider’s web, I feel like a fly caught in a trap. My body springs up and down, flat on my back, lying next to Degan who’s face down.

Once the boinging stops, I’m still stuck to the web. We both are, arms and legs splayed wide open.

Panic sets in.

I know I could have freaked out about everything, long before now, but for some unknown reason I’ve managed to rein it all in. Now, I’m not in control of my worst emotions.

With all my strength, I lift my head. My hair gets pulled away from the sticky webbing, but at least I can see my immediate surroundings a bit better.

And I can now see where all the light is coming from. It’s coming from inside all the mounds of rocks. There are openings in the sides of these pebbly domes and light shines from them. From the doorways.

I know these are little buildings. I just know it and my suspicions are confirmed when another buck naked female spider creature emerges from one of the doorways, her skin glowing bright. When she’s fully left her little cave behind, the inner hole-way is black and dark.

If she’s the one who was creating the light from her little rock hut, then that can only mean one thing…

My mind almost snaps as suddenly more female spider women pour from their dwellings on the cavern floor. As they leave their confines, the holes they crawl from are left dark inside.

If I thought the tippity tapping of one of these terrifying creatures was nerve shredding, the sound of softly tapping massive spider legs in their thousands is enough to make my mind snap.

When I turn my head to see Degan watching me, I realize he’s trying to tell me something. But again, I’ve lost my hearing due to total nerve ending wipe-out, as though I’ve been pummeled by a mental wave of utter panic.

The spider women swarm near. I’m blinded by their collective brightness so now I can no longer see or hear.

I’d be grateful for such a fact if only it meant I couldn’t feel as well, because as the web starts shuddering again, I’m slowly tormented inside my own head as hundreds of spider legs descend. Poking, twitching, and tormenting me into submission. I’m wrapped tightly in a cocoon of silk and soon enough my whole face will be covered and I’ll no longer be able to breathe.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The spider women have me and Degan. We’re both cocooned in spider’s silk and it’s an icky feeling knowing the webbing comes from human (ish) hands.

I’ve closed my eyes as my body is carried along, passed overhead from spider woman to spider woman in turn. They aren’t using their human hands to pass me and Degan down the line, or should I say swarm? No, that creeps me out even more. They’re using their long legs to pass our cocooned bodies through the streets of this underground cavern. Their spider legs must be mega strong. If I didn’t know what was really happening, it would just feel as though I’m floating along on a dry sea of undulating waves.

Unfortunately, the place where our captured journey ends, is not a soft landing at all.

Both our cocooned bodies are unceremoniously dumped onto the earthen floor of one of the mound buildings inside this vast cave system.

Finally, I dare to open my eyes. There is much whispering like papery crumplings, when I can hear again.

Degan is lying next to me and he looks like a grub with his white-wrapped spider silk body, and just his head sticking out the top of the cocoon.

I have a feeling I look the same.

The whispers are coming from the naked spider women who swarm all around us inside this massive stone building. Because that’s what it looks like from the inside. The walls and ceiling are all lit up by the glow exuding from every spider woman in attendance.

The walls. The ceiling.

They’re covered in swirls and symbols like the one’s on my stump arm. And surrounding artwork is entirely engraved in gold.

My head swivels and I look at Degan. “So this is what happens when I trust a perfect stranger.”

“Sorry.”

That’s his reply. And he says it to me with tears in his eyes.

I’m not sure if it’s a sign of sincerity, or if he’s in pain from all of his body parts being squished up inside a pod of spider’s silk.

“Are they going to eat us now?” I’m not looking at the Degan guy any more. I’m just staring up at the symbol covered ceiling.

“I wouldn’t have thought so.”

His answer doesn’t exactly reassure me. Especially not when he starts laughing.

Wait. That isn’t the sound of laughter from a young lad, it’s an older man’s laugh. A laugh I know.

“Dad?” My eye lids fly open. Swiveling my head left to right, I struggle to see through the spider and human glowing legs that swarm all around.

“Jaclyn?”

It is Dad!

“Jac?”

And that’s Mum’s voice! I just know it!

More laughter from my parents and now I really don’t know what’s going on.

“Jaclyn.” Dad’s voice sounds strange. “Why aren’t you watching this? You love this film.”

Film? “What film, Dad? Where are you?”

“Prop them up.” A new voice hisses and then cackles evilly.

We are indeed propped up, Degan and I, by many a she-spider. Still cocooned, and now pushed along the rough stone floor.

“Dad!” I shout when I see them. “Mum!”

Neither of them turn to look at me, and I can’t see them until both Degan and I are shoved round to face them both, from a right angle.

I’m shocked at their appearance. My parents are sat on lumps of spider’s silk. They’re both making strange motions with their hands, as though eating invisible food from their laps.

Dad points at a blank space in front of him and laughs. “This is the greatest film of all time, as far as I’m concerned.”

Mum agrees with him and they both carry on pretending to eat. Their faces are pale in complexion with a sheen of waxy coating. Their eyes are rimmed in red and the laughter they keep exuding seems forced.

“What’s happening to my parents?” I look pleadingly at Degan.

“It’s going to be okay, Jaclyn.”

Someone laughs; a low gurgle of a laugh, and through the milieu of gathered spider women, a familiar and unwelcome face appears.

It’s the woman who exploded into our house this morning!

“Yes, Jaclyn.” She moves toward us wearing her black business suit. A nasty smile on her face. A face that looks like her sister’s. A face that looks similar to every spider woman in this infested place. “Everything will be fine. Assuming you find the keystone.”

“She doesn’t know where it is, Raknah.” This from Degan.

“Keystone?” I blurt, looking from my parents and back to the be-suited woman again. “Raknah? I thought you said her sister’s name was Raknah.”

More laughter ensues. It’s crazy laughter, insane. It’s coming from my parents and the woman wearing all black. But my parents don’t seem happy at all. I look at them again and I notice something even more odd about their behavior.

Both of them keep flicking their eyes down briefly, before looking back up again and staring into blank space. I follow their gaze downwards and spot something on the floor.

My eyes are glued to it when Degan speaks. “They’re all Raknah. Sisters of the spider.”

“Spider.” I mumble, at a loss for any other words due to the shock of adrenaline coursing through my veins.

A spider is what I’m looking at right now. Though, it’s not a living arachnid. I’m staring at a device made of brass that’s shaped like a spider. It’s eight legs are coiled springs. It’s butt is a massive clockwork sphere with tiny cogs going round and round inside. The head looks like what I can only describe as a black diamond, and I have no idea how such a thing is held together.

“Spider.” I mutter again and look up at the Degan guy. “Too many spiders.”

He mouths words to me and for some reason I hear him inside my head, loud and clear.

“It’s their power source, but it’s also their prison guard. That spider keeps them locked in this world. Raknah has figured out how to use it to multiply herself, and to keep your parents captive. Tell her nothing about the keystone.”

How did he do that?

“What are you telling her?” The woman strides forward in her high heeled shoes. Hardly appropriate foot wear for such an environment, I can’t help but noticing. Why I’ve picked up on such a banal thing is beyond me, but there it is, I’ve noticed her inappropriate shoes. “Stop talking to her, Degan!”

She’s up in his face and the spider woman who was holding him up, drops him immediately. The back of his head hits the gravelly floor hard, and he gets knocked out completely.

Or maybe he’s dead.

“Shit!” I cry out, not knowing what to do or say. “You killed him!”

“He’s not dead.”

I think she is Raknah, or whatever. Isn’t that what Degan just tried to tell me inside my head? She’s Raknah and all these spider women are copies of her?

This is a lot for me to try and understand. I’m thinking and thinking and I’m getting no where trying to work out how I’m going to get myself and my parents safely away from this crazy lady.

Raknah number one, or whatever, the suit-wearing-woman, grins and walks slowly towards my parents. “No one has to die today, Jaclyn. Not if you locate the keystone.”

“Right. The keystone.” I don’t really know what I’m saying, I just don’t want her to hurt my parents. I don’t like that she’s gone over to them at all. “Umm… yes Degan told me all about the keystone, so if you’ll just get me out of this thing, I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

I don’t know how it’s possible, but the woman’s huge grin grows even wider. “I knew you’d come to your senses. You just needed a bit of prompting.”

She flicks my mother on the chin. “What families won’t do for each other. Am I right, ladies?”

That sickening whispering sound erupts from all around. I realize it’s the spider women talking. It’s a dry papery noise and it makes my skin crawl, even wrapped tightly inside this horrid cocoon.

“Family.” Their collective dry voices speak one word of English in unison.

“These women are your family?” I question Raknah, even though they’re all known by the same name. I think.

Her eyes meet mine. “They’re better than family because they’re all me.”

Oh how I wish Degan hadn’t spoken straight into my head. It’s confusing trying to process every moment in this hell hole of a place, I can’t think straight enough to properly understand everything that’s going on.

“Now.” Raknah keeps smiling, and she’s walking back towards me. “Where is the keystone, Jaclyn?”

I don’t know what to say. I haven’t got a clue where this keystone thing is. I don’t even know what it is.

“Let my parents go first, and then I’ll tell you!”

“You’ll tell me, or they both die!” She grabs my throat. Her fingers are abnormally long and somehow they wrap all the way around my neck. She’s not squeezing tight though, I’m guessing so I can still talk to her about the keystone thing.

“You’ll kill us anyway, won’t you?”

I suddenly feel defeated. I’m trapped. I was captured a long time ago, but I still held out some kind of hope in my mind. Now I’m not so sure. I don’t know what to say that will save my parents. There’s nothing I can do. No real hope at all.

There’s nothing I can say, so I don’t say anything.

Silence stretches between us for the space of a full ten seconds. The only sounds that can be heard is my parents crazed giggling and the tippity tap of spider women legs milling around on every surface within this dome, even on the walls and ceiling.

My senses are heightened to the terror of the moment and that’s when I notice another sound. A scrabbling on the ground.

The very moment my eyes shift downwards, I see Degan. He’s awake and the next thing he does seems to happen in the blink of an eye.

He’s freed one of his arms from the cocoon. His hand goes to the strange clockwork spider on the floor. But his hand isn’t empty. I see the glint of the little locket mirror, right before he slams it down onto the mechanical spider.

At the same time, Raknah turns her head. “No!” She cries out, releasing her hold on my neck. She jumps with her entire body and arcs around through the air.

Things seem to happen in slow motion at this point.

Degan mouths silent words to me again. “Find Crizma. Find Crizma. Find Crizma.” His words echo inside my head, meaningless as they are.

Raknah lands on top of Degan’s outstretched hand.

I look at my parents who for a split second both seem in their right minds as they look up at me.

My vision turns to grey mist. My body evaporates as though imploding and I feel the tight cocoon around me loosen and deflate.

Everything pales, I can’t see anymore, and my mind spins off into a cloudy void of bubbling fog.

CHAPTER NINE

All I see is fog. I smell fog too. It’s like putting my face over a cold-air humidifier. My nose feels damp inside and I’m having trouble breathing. I’m not an asthma sufferer, but after today’s events I wouldn’t be surprised if I developed some sort of breathing difficulties due to shock.

Sensations start to penetrate my mind through the fog. I can’t see anything, but sounds are humming into reality.

Listening intently, I soon hear chatter. Voices all around.

Suddenly the fog clears and I can see.

This isn’t a good thing because I don’t have time to orient myself. I’m moving downwards and it doesn’t register in my brain that the cause of my movement is because I’m standing on an escalator. Not until just this second when I’ve reached the end of the stairs as they sink into the floor and disappear.

I’m tripped up and I go sprawling painfully across a black marble floor.

“Oh my heavens!” A lady shouts. “Are you all right, love?”

People swarm around me as I roll over. I’m staring up into strange faces and it’s unnerving me no end.

“I’m fine.” Shooting to my feet is a bad idea. I wobble and have to sit right back down again.

“Wow!” A girl who looks to be about the age of nine, points a finger at me. “Look at her arm!”

Hurriedly, and self-conscious as hell, I bring the sleeve of Degan’s too-long jacket over my handless wrist.

“Don’t stare, Olivia. It’s rude.”

I think that was the girl’s mother admonishing her.

“Are you sure you’re all right, love?” The little old lady asks me again.

Nodding my head again, I stand up. Slowly this time. “I’m fine.”

And without another word I run for it. I don’t get far though. As I’m trying to make my way out of this tower of escalators, I hit a barrier.

“What the?”

Putting out my only hand, I press it against the clear surface of a window.

Why is there a window here? This is the archway that leads off from the escalators, like a big doorway. So why is it blocked off by a window? A very clean window too. I’ve never seen glass this crystal clear before.

I’m tapping the window with a finger when something extraordinary happens.

The little girl who was wowed by my silvered wrist walks straight through the glass.

I watch as more and more people do the same. They just walk straight through the archway as though there’s no barrier at all.

Which there isn’t, is there?

There is no glass here. That’s why I can see out into the corridor so clearly.

Whatever barrier this is, it’s only blocking my path and no one else’s.

No matter how far along the barrier I drag my hand, there’s no pushing through to the other side. I even try jumping up to see if there’s a height limit on this invisible wall, but find no joy.

I’m trapped inside this stairwell of escalators.

Or maybe I’m not.

I try every floor, via upwards and downwards moving escalator, but nothing gives.

I’m well and truly trapped and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about this horrid predicament.

How did I get here anyway? I don’t know what’s happening to me! Why do I only have one hand? And why is my wrist encased in silver symbols and swirls?

I’m drifting. Slowly riding each escalator up and down many floors. I’m not even looking at my surroundings really, not until I bash into the latest transparent barrier that won’t allow me out into the corridor of this massive building.

“Excuse me.” I stop a lady before she passes through the massive archway. “Where is this?”

She scowls at me and moves away quickly.

Okay so maybe that was a stupid question.

Looking around it doesn’t actually take me long to figure out that I’m inside a massive department store, and judging by the elaborate ancient Egyptian decor, I think it’s safe to say I’m inside Harrods riding up and down the Egyptian escalators.

It’s mega fancy in here, but too gaudy for my befuddled eyeballs to appreciate.

I need to sit down somewhere and clear my mind. There’s no way I’m going to accept the fact that I’m trapped in here forever. And how did I get here anyway?

Now I’m paying attention to my surroundings. As I travel up and down the escalators, I stop on each level looking for somewhere to sit.

Finally, I locate a floor with huge concrete columns. I peruse my way behind said columns and find a ledge with carvings that I can at least lean against.

Now, what did Degan say to me? Find something? Find someone?

After about thirty minutes of slow breathing to calm my nerves, I decide to give up the ghost. I can’t do this. I’ve reached my limit. I’ve had time to think on things and all the things are bloody preposterous.

Ever since the moment Degan burnt that key into my hand yesterday, I’ve had nothing but an insufferable life. Okay so it hasn’t even been twenty-four hours since he appeared to me in a mirror of fog, but that’s even more to the point.

Things have been full throttle since I got up this morning and my mind has finally ground to a halt. I’m just going to sit here and switch off. I’m not even going to worry about my parents. There’s nothing I can do for them. I just can’t win. They are going to be murdered by spider women and I’m going to be stuck here in this escalator stairwell until I starve to death and die. Slowly. Which is no less than I deserve for being the worst daughter ever to my kidnapped parents.

“Find crizma.” I mumble aloud. “Find crizma. Find crizma. Find crizma.”

What does that even mean? Why am I thinking on it?

My head in my hand I run my fingers through my long tangled blonde hair.

It’s the last words Degan said inside my brain.

“What the hell is a crizma?” I shout too loud.

Peeking around the stone column, I make sure no one heard me. Sure enough, shoppers are going about their business of moving up and down the escalators. They’re exiting through to the outer corridor as well. So easy for them to do. Seeing as how they aren’t trapped by an invisible wall like I am.

“Crizma! Crizma! Crizma!” I screech even louder now that I know no one is paying the slightest attention to the crazy disabled girl hiding behind the pillars.

Looking at my wrist where my hand was severed, I feel something unusual. It’s as though I’ve been on an adrenaline rush, ever since the attack at our house this morning. I haven’t quite let the realization of my new disability fully sink in. Because that’s what I have now. A disability by social standards. Now that I think about it, I don’t feel disabled. Not only because I can’t walk or anything, but because that’s just a word. A word used by people to generalize anyone who’s different. I think the term should be changed to ‘enabled’ and society should do just that. Enable the supposed disabled.

“Enable the disabled dammit!” I shout this aloud too, contradicting myself with an oxymoron of epic proportions.

Oh what’s the point? What am I going to do, sit here and shout myself to death? If only that could happen before I die of thirst or hunger. I don’t feel particularly thirsty or hungry right now, but that’s probably because I’m not in my right mind at all. How can I be?

Lowering my head and handless arm, I stare at the strange silvery swirls and symbols that travel up from my wrist.

The markings that actually ring my wrist look square-ish in design. They flow out as though dissipating and melding into the swirls and symbols that travel towards my elbow. The closer I look, the more intricate the design appears.

I’m mesmerized by the symbols and swirls. They pull me in as intently as the snowflake that had fallen against my lashes, last night.

Fractals.

There are fractals in the swirls.

Patterns that never end, eternally rotating in design inwards and out. Fractating, bending, curving endlessly towards infinitum on a sub-atomic level.

And they just so happen to mimic the patterns I see carved into the upside down view of the wall carvings I’m leaning against.

Jumping up, I spin around. “What on earth?”

I kneel and shove my face towards the yellowed stone wall. Trailing fingers over the carvings, I look from my silvered arm and back again to the wall.

Fractals.

More fractals and similar square-shaped symbols.

How can this be?

Then again? How can this not be?

I had a key burned into my hand. I had my hand severed. I’ve experienced the company of spider women. My parents have been abducted. Somehow I was transported into this stairwell of escalators.

I’ve seen things. Strange things. Seeing these similar carvings like the ones on my arm is not actually strange, when I think about it.

The way I figure it now, anything unusual is hereby normal in my new life of utter madness.

“Of course these symbols are similar.” I whisper to the wall. “Why wouldn’t they be? I must have appeared here for a reason. Things that are weird now happen to me for a reason. And that’s a fact! A fact! Fact! Fact!”

Leaning back, I fall onto my butt and sit hard onto the black marble floor. There are little flecks of silver dispersed throughout the dark stone. They reflect the lights like twinkling stars and I’m once again mesmerized into crazed silence.

My life used to be normal. I just graduated from Sixth Form last year. Okay so I’ve hopped from job to job as though I’ve been doing a pub crawl with my working career, but I get bored easily, I can’t help it.

I’m far from bored now. Just because I’m sitting here like a spent lump who’s given up on life, doesn’t mean I’m bored. At this point I’d actually prefer a bit of boredom. Anything to take away from the panic of not knowing what to do. Feeling helpless about everything. All this wacky shit. It’s too much for a normal girl to deal with.

But I’m not normal, am I?

Lifting my handless arm into the air I stare at it again. “This isn’t normal.”

“Normal is over rated.”

Who said that?

My head swivels round and round too fast and I crick my neck big time.

“Ow!” I cry out, grabbing the top of my shoulder.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.”

There’s the voice again, but I still haven’t located its source with my eyes.

Loosening up my neck muscles I get to my feet.

“You might want to sit back down.” The voice speaks again and I’m wondering if it’s some kind of mind trick like how that Degan guy spoke inside my head.

It is the sound of a male voice, but it doesn’t sound like Degan, from what I can remember.

The voice I’m hearing now is low. Very, very low and deep in timber.

I’m so busy looking for the source of the voice, I don’t pay particular attention to the black cat I can see wandering out from behind a tall pillar. I mean, it is weird that a cat would be inside Harrods, yes. But I’ve experienced weirder things less than twenty-four hours ago.

Nevertheless, the cat holds my attention now.

“Here kitty kitty.” I make kissy noises at the cat as I bend down onto one knee. If there’s anything I’ve learned about cats, like when I was fifteen years old and I tried to chase one down, only to fall and scrape my knee, forever causing a scar to remain there, it’s that cats do their own thing. They won’t come to you if they don’t want to, hence the kneeling I’m doing right now.

It works.

The cat tip-toes gracefully towards me as though it’s walking down a modelling cat-walk runway at a feline fashion show.

So that’s where the term ‘cat-walk’ comes from. It must be. I’m watching this elegant creature move smoothly towards me, one paw placed in front of the next.

“Did you hear that man speaking?” I coo to the black cat as it nears. “What are you doing here? You beautiful thing.”

Beautiful yes, but there’s something strange about this cat, apart from the fact that it shouldn’t be here. Then again, neither should I. And I certainly shouldn’t be trapped here. I mean, I don’t know HOW it is that I’m trapped in this tower of escalators.

“What’s this?” The cat is near enough for me to stroke its fur now and I’ve never seen anything like this.

The cat is wearing glasses. No, that’s not right. It’s wearing goggles. Little goggles with a black leather strap around it’s ears, head and chin. The lenses of the goggles gleam with a rainbow oil-slick reflection every time the cat moves its head. When the black cat looks up at me its eyes are magnified massively behind the lenses, so I’m staring back at huge emerald green irises surrounding a slit of a feline pupil.

When the cat opens its mouth and speaks English words at me in the low deep voice, I’m paralyzed into full on shock.

I don’t move a muscle. I just watch as the cat continues to look up at me with its magnified eyes, and speak.

Speak words. This cat is talking words at me like a human being.

What words of the English vocabulary its actually saying, I haven’t got a clue. See, the thing is, I’ve somehow forgotten the English language when spoken aloud to me from a cat. I’m thinking in English, inside my head, but I seriously don’t understand what the cat is saying.

I’m so confused. I just need a lie down. I just need to listen to the talking cat and also lie down.

Yes, I need a nap. I’m so sleepy. I like hearing this cat speak. It has a soothing voice that makes me feel tired.

There’s really nothing else for it. I’m going to have to tuck myself up in this bed right here and go to sleep.

How convenient there’s a bed in the middle of the tower of escalators. A bed right here isn’t unusual at all because everything that happens to me now is 100% weird, so that equals normal. Right?

Who knows?

Not me.

Good night.

I lay my head down onto a pillow as soft as a rock and I go to sleep, immediately dreaming of sitting in an audience at a magic show and clapping both of my hands together excitedly.

Wait. This isn’t right. I don’t have two hands. I only have the one.

“Meow!”

Suddenly, I’m awake.

But I never went to sleep.

I’m still perched on one knee, staring at the talking black cat.

My hand goes to my cheek. Something stings and when I pull it away there’s blood on my finger tips.

“Did you scratch me?” I ask the cat? I’m wide-eyed and feeling a little crazy, but when it speaks I understand.

“Yes.” It replies in its low timber of a manly voice. “You were hysterical, but I do apologize.”

Oh. It apologizes. That’s nice. I think.

Touching my cheek again. It doesn’t sting.

“It’s healed.” Cat says. “So long as your hand is protected your body is as well.”

“My hand whuuu?” I can’t speak right. I’m so confused. The cat’s correct though. My skin is healed.

“Come with me.”

Cat commands and I follow. What else am I going to do?

He (yes the feline is definitely male if I’m judging by his deep voice, and I am) struts off toward the carved wall. His goggles bob up and down a bit and I wonder if they’re heavy. And why shouldn’t I wonder about such trivial matters at a time like this? I have to keep my sanity somehow, and pondering normal things helps immensely.

The cat puts his furry black paw against the fractal carvings on the very ledge I was just leaning against. Then he pads away back towards the escalators.

“Where are you going?” I follow behind quickly, still holding onto my cheek. It’s still weirdly sore. “I’ve been up and down these moving stairs like a million times! We’re trapped in here and no mistake!”

Hang on. Where did this set of escalators come from?

There’s a new level going down.

“Did you do this?” Why did I just ask that? Of course the cat did this. I’m talking to a talking cat that wears goggles. Who knows what this incredible creature is truly capable of doing? “Wait, forget what I just said. Can you get my hand back, if you can make an escalator appear out of nowhere?”

Cat stops walking at the start of the escalator flowing downwards. “I didn’t make these appear out of no where, they’ve been here all along.”

Of course they have. Why’d I ask? I’m just going to shut up now. I’m conversing with a cat and if a cat can be bothered to talk at all, I’m sure it knows what its talking about at all times.

He, I mean. I’m sure Cat is a he.

“You’re a boy cat, yeah?” I question him again as we both step onto the escalator, one after the other, me behind the cat. I’ve had to take my one hand off my face and put it onto the moving armrest, just to steady myself as we descend.

I think I’ve given up on shutting up as soon as I decided upon the very same task. I’m with a talking cat. Might as well have a conversation with a creature I’ve never spoken with before.

“I’m male, yes.” Cat replies. “My name is Crizma and—"

“Crizma?” I shout, startling the cat. “Degan said I should find a crizma! He said I should find you!”

“Well done.” Cat —I mean Crizma— sniffs. “Except I seem to be the one who’s found you.”

I can’t argue with him. All I did was run up and down the escalators and cry all over a carved wall. “Well, how was I supposed to know what you were? All Degan said was FIND CRIZMA, and he did it inside my head!”

“He what?”

We’ve reached the bottom of the escalator and Crizma stumbles a bit, before righting himself and shooting off into the darkness like a crazed… well… startled cat.

“Hey!” I shout into the gloom. “Where did you go?”

That’s all there is down here. Just darkness. Glow from above shines down onto the escalator we just disembarked. Other than that though, darkness surrounds.

“Jeez.” Wrapping my arms around myself, I shiver a bit with nerves. “I feel like I just rode a moving staircase into the depths of hell.”

Crizma cat’s voice booms from the darkness. “You are spot on in your assessment, Jaclyn.”

It knows my name. I mean, cat knows my name. Crizma knows my name.

Of course he does. He found me when I was supposed to find him. This is all going according to plan. What plan that is? I’m not sure, but at least I’ve done what Degan said. Assuming that’s a good thing. He did get me away from those spider women, and I think it’s to help him and my parents in turn.

Why else would he have talked inside my head and told me to FIND CRIZMA?

Although, Crizma himself seemed a bit freaked out when I told him about the whole mind-talking thing just now.

Whoosh.

My thoughts are blown strait out of my head when a powerful light erupts all around. Bright orange flames have lit up like beacons on wall torches, and the heat has sucked most of the air from the room.

Because that’s where we are. I can see that now, and when I can breathe normally again I can fully digest just what it is I’m looking at.

The floor, walls, and ceiling are deepest black marble. And just like the floors of the escalator stairwell above, there are specks of silver engrained into the dark stone that flickers orange in the firelight.

It’s a circular room and I count twelve flame sconces on the wall. The escalator I’m standing at the base of, is in the middle of the floor.

“Oh my hell.” I look around, gob smacked.

“In your world, yes. This is known as the gateway to hell.”

The what now? Crizma cat’s words worry me. “What do you mean?”

“Degan and I are from a different dimension, Jaclyn. The authorities in our world have been using Earth for thousands of years to house their criminals. There’s already a realm of hell that’s deep inside the Earth, yet on another plane of reality. Mr Tivnys is the warden of the prison upper-world, inside his castle.”

“Oh.”

“Any further questions?”

“No.”

“Good. Then let us carry on through hell’s gateway so we can find your hand.”

“Okay.”

And with that I watch the talking cat called Crizma as he steps toward the torch on the wall directly in front of where we’re standing.

When he puts his little paw onto the black marble wall, I back away quickly, and without any more hesitation I run full pelt up the escalator with stairs moving down.

I don’t care how hard I have to pump my legs to reach the upper level. I’ll be damned before I follow a talking cat into hell. No pun intended. I don’t even care that I don’t really have the first clue about what that Crizma cat was talking about, but I’m not going to risk anything to do with a lunatic feline banging on about hell dimensions in any way whatsoever!

CHAPTER TEN

I’ve been wandering the upper escalators for hours. The massive department store is closed, and the moving stairwell is devoid of shoppers. I’m not particularly bothered with the reasons why I’ve not been noticed on security cameras. I figure the goggle-wearing cat that can talk probably has something to do with that.

The very feline in which is following me up and down the now still escalators, and I notice he’s not speaking.

“Stop following me.” I grumble on my way down yet another set of metal stairs.

“All right then.”

“What?” Whipping round mid-step, I gaze up at the top floor. “That’s it? You’re just going to do whatever I say?”

“Not whatever.” Cat, or Crizma, or whomsoeverhemaybe, sits on his haunches, staring haughtily down with magnified eyeballs at me. “You’ll probably come to your senses better if I let you learn for yourself.”

“Learn what exactly?”

“Haven’t you noticed you’re not tired?”

“Yeah. So?”

“So unless you’re planning on walking these stairs for an eternity, you’re going to have to follow me through hell.”

Why does he have to say things like that. “Do you even know what you sound like?” I rub my eyes. Crizma’s right that my legs don’t feel fatigued, but I’m growing quickly weary of conversations with cats, now that I’ve met one who can actually talk. “You can’t just tell me to damn my soul to hell!”

Crizma cat’s head swivels around on its neck. A few little kitty joints pop before he eyeballs me behind goggles again. “Perhaps I didn’t explain myself clearly. We are not going INTO hell, we will simply be using its energy to allow us to travel within this realm.”

My reply drips with sarcasm. “Oh well when you explain it like that it makes perfect sense!”

Throwing my one good hand up into the air, I stomp down the still escalator. And I keep on stomping again and again. Up and down. All night long until the sky turns dim blue outside the big windows on one of the levels, so I know the sun will rise soon.

I guess Crizma cat is right. I’m not tired at all. I mean, I do feel a little sleepy, but I know I could keep walking up and down these presently unmoving escalators for many more days.

But I really don’t want to do that, so I guess I’m going to have to listen to the talking cat.

I find the feline curled up and sleeping at the top of the previously hidden escalator. He looks really sweet with his little goggles and I have a strange urge to pet his soft-looking fur.

“Ummm…" I mumble quietly. “Are you asleep… Crizma?”

The black cat stretches his body to ten times that of his curled up length. “I’m not anymore.” He replies, whipping up into a seated position and taking a moment to lick a paw.

“No, obviously you’re awake now.” I don’t know why I asked such a silly question. “I’m ready to go to hell.”

Crizma shakes his little head and surprisingly enough, the goggles stay on. “I told you, you’re not going to hell. We will simply be using the energy from the realm to take us to your hand.”

“Right. No problem. I’m ready.”

Am I truly ready though? I can’t believe I’m up for this, even though I don’t really know what the cat is talking about. When a chatty feline says we’re going through hell, all I hear is going to hell. The mention of the place of damnation is just that; not a realm, or whatever Crizma is talking about.

To psyche myself up further I jump up and down on the spot a couple of times. I shake out my shoulders and I’m about to do a couple of swift air punches to twist my torso strong. My one fist flies out, punching nothing, but when I fling out my right arm I feel ridiculous doing so with no hand attached to the end of my wrist, even if I’m not actually looking to punch anything, or anyone.

Although, if I stop and think about anything, I’d really like to punch the smiley woman Raknah in her evil face.

But no! I mustn’t think about my parents or I’ll lose my mind. I just have to get through this current predicament and then I can start worrying about the impossible crap that has been my life for the past forty-eight, or however many hours since Degan burnt that blasted key into my hand.

“Let’s do this.” I take one step forward, my legs buckle from fatigue that I wasn’t supposed to feel and I flack out, but not before the realization that I’m falling down stairs hits me like an explosion to my head.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“What happened?” I’m at the bottom of the stairs and my own bottom feels quite sore, so I figure I got down here by falling.

“You fainted.”

“I did?”

“Yes.” Crizma replies in his low sultry man-voice, which is slightly unnerving, especially as I’ve just awoken after being close to dying. “You failed to mention to me when it was you last ate.”

Sitting up straighter, I look at the goggle-eyed cat. “So I can run up and down stairs for an eternity, but I still have to eat for energy to do that? I thought you said my missing hand is protecting me somewhere.”

“It’s protecting you from injury, not hunger.”

I shake my head and a few joints pop in my neck. “Well if I have to eat do you know where I can get some chocolate cake?”

The cat sighs loudly. “I should inform you that since Degan gave you the key, certain processes in your brain have been inhibited.”

I think I know what Crizma cat is talking about, even though he just basically told me I’m not thinking straight at all.

Standing, I brush off my black jeans with the only hand I’ve got left. Looking at my silvered stump I glance quickly back at the cat. “I should be a lot more upset about losing my hand, shouldn’t I?”

He nods and his goggle eyes go out of focus for a brief flash. “The keystone is protecting your body, but also your mind. If it weren’t you would be a jabbering mess of internal shock.”

That’s good to know. “But you and Degan both said I could get my hand back. So what happens when I do? Will I then lose my mind? Because if that’s the case, I think I’d rather stay like this.”

Crizma cat squints his eyes behind magnified goggles at me. “I’m inclined to agree, but it’s no longer up to you.”

And with that the talking cat trots off back up the escalators. It’s now moving downwards, but that doesn’t stop the strange creature from zooming to the upper floor at great speed. “Wait for my return, Jaclyn.” He howls down at me, and it’s a good thing too. I was about to follow after he dropped that verbal bomb shell on me.

“Where are you going?” I shout.

“To get you nourishment.”

“Get me a chocolate muffin. Okay? Did you hear me, cat? I mean, Crizma… Crizma?”

Damn. He’s gone.

What exactly did he mean it’s no longer up to me?

Fifteen minutes later I’m pacing the circular floor. Crizma said my brain isn’t working properly right now, to save my mind from the shock of all this new information. Maybe that’s why I can’t seem to over contemplate his words. I’m trying and failing to get angry with the cat that speaks better English than any teacher I’ve ever had in my entire schooling life.

Finally, Crizma returns. He’s dragging a paper bag, so if he did get me a muffin it’s probably ruined by now.

He places the bag on the top escalator step and it immediately starts descending towards me. Crizma isn’t following though. He’s up there with his ears perked and even from here I can see his eyes are open wider than usual behind his magnified goggles.

“Ummm… are you okay?” I bend and grab hold of the bag and the second I do I’m pulled off my feet by an unseen force.

“Jaclyn!” Crizma pounces from up above at the same time. He flies down the moving stairs as I’m pulled backwards.

“Help!” I cry out, swiveling my head on my neck right and left.

Suddenly, I’m whipped bodily around by the same unseen force. I manage to keep hold of the bag, barely. Though it flings outwards and I nearly drop it.

Meow! Hiss!

Crizma is no longer speaking. He’s down here with me now and pawing at the air around my personage.

“What are you doing?” I scream. “What’s happening?”

I don’t get a response from the cat, but I’m not even bothered about the fact that he’s no longer speaking English to me. What I am highly concerned about —even through whatever fog is mellowing my brain— is the wall in front of me.

It’s no longer a wall of plain old black marble.

Shapes are forming on its dark surface and within seconds I’m staring at a floor to ceiling carving of stone.

Human figures and monsters play out a scene of horror, captured on solid motionless rock. People frozen in poses of writhing agony as demon-like creatures torture their bodies.

Mutilated carvings of suffering is what I’m staring at, right before the whole mural cracks straight down the middle. The wall opens up like a pair of thick massive double doors.

I’m staring into the mouth of darkness within. I try to cry out to Crizma, but my voice gets sucked away from my throat. I’m pulled into the black void and not even a stifled thinking process by way of keystone protection can keep me from feeling utter terror.

Crizma spoke to me about the place of the damned and right now I think I’m being sucked into the very depths of hell.

CHAPTER TWELVE

For what seems like eons my vision is transfixed on the dark tunnel before me. I know I'm hearing Crizma howl and hiss somewhere nearby, but it doesn't quite register in my mind as important. What's crucial is the pinpoint of light straight in front of me, because…

It’s getting bigger.

Watching in astonishment, unable to move my body in any way, I look hard at the light.

It’s ebbing and flowing like an enlarging sphere. When I can make out its shape I can fully see that I’m staring at a slivery globe. The closer it gets to the opening of the doors, the bigger it looks until it has completely filled the doorway.

Then, just like the doors had split open in two, this silver sphere splits open like a sliced pie.

Corners open from the middle, peeling outwards. But the corners don’t stop there. They transform. Elongate. They grow.

“Help!” Finally, I’ve found my voice, and the instant I do I can understand Crizma’s hissing. He is speaking English!

“Use your wrist, Jaclyn!” He growls. “Aim your protected hand at the entity!”

I do as I'm told.

Sticking my slivered arm out straight in front of me, I aim it long and true.

"Something's happening!" I screech as my arm starts to shake. Some kind of power surges up from my handless wrist. It sizzles the fractals on my arm, merging throughout my body.

"Argh!" I cry out as a blast of light shoots from my wrist, right into the gaping maw of the chompy squid that's sucking me forward.

Kablamo!

The squirming calamari explodes into a million gooey chunks. I go flying, no longer suspended mid-air. I crash into Crizma and land with him in a heap against the circular wall.

Unfurling from a ball-shape, I unravel Crizma from my one-handed embrace.

"Blehhhhhh!"

I am covered in pink exploded guts. Nothing remains of the Cracken-like creature that basically just tried to devour me.

Even Crizma is disgusted by the smell of me, and the surrounding carnage. The cat, however, is completely unharmed. Not a single drop of ooze covers his shining black coat of fur.

Splat. I flick off goop with my one good and. It splooges onto the floor, joining the rest of the exploded remains.

"You did it." Crizma trots carefully towards the open double doors. Stepping over and around piles of slightly quivering squid guts. "You've opened the gateway."

"The what now?" Scrambling to my feet, I slip a bit in slime, but steady myself soon enough. If I ever see Degan again he's not going to be very pleased with the putrid state of his jacket. "Oh. Whoa. Is that…?"

I can't quite believe what I'm seeing, even after everything I've already seen.

There's a foggy mirror-like panel floating in the air inside the darkness beyond the double doors. In it, I can see what looks like North Wyche Castle.

"Is that where Degan gave you the key, Jaclyn?"

I nod in answer to Crizma's question, yes.

"Then that's where your hand is. You must go through and find the keystone."

"The what?"

"The keystone, Jaclyn! Concentrate!"

Oh!

"Did you just scratch my leg with your claws?"

Looking down, I realize it took a monumental effort to tear my gaze away from the foggy mirror.

Crizma is looking up at me with his goggle eyes. "Never let any vision get the better of you, Jaclyn. Why do you think I wear these things?"

"How would I know? I just assumed a talking cat can wear whatever the hell it wants to."

"So you think these are just a fashion accessory?"

I shrug my shoulders and some exploded squid goop falls off and onto the floor with a splat.

"Never mind." Crizma turns his goggle-eyed gaze away from me. "When you step through you must find the keystone straight away."

"Step through that?" I point at the foggy mirror. "I don't think so."

"You will regain your full mental capacity, if you do."

"Is that something I want?"

"Yes, now go."

If the cat says so, then why not? I haven't felt in my right mind for days, and I have a feeling I'm supposed to be far more worried about the plight of my parents, than I am right now.

"Nice to meet you, Chuck." I salute the talking cat, then I step forward into the foggy void.

"Chuck?"

"Yeah." I reply, even though things are getting mighty hazy in here, the closer I get to the misty mirror. "I grew up watching a lot of Wallace & Gromit when I was little."

Why am I talking about my past? Crizma's right, I do need my mental faculties back in tact. And asap too!

I don't even bother to test the shiny surface of the foggy window. It shows me my own reflection, which I don't really want to look at, seeing as how I'm covered in slime and guts. I can also see through to North Wyche Castle in the fog, and I'm not even sure there's actually any glass in front of me.

It's a portal into the unknown. Well, it's unbeknownst to me how this portal exists, but if a talking cat says it will take me to where I'll get my hand back, I am SO there.

And away I go.

I take a deep breath. Step forward in my bile covered shoes, and walk straight ahead into the foggy unknown.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The first thing I notice about stepping through fog, and having it lift the fog off my brain, is the irony of just that.

Nothing is lost on me anymore.

Crizma was right when he said stepping through this portal would return my senses to me.

And wow has it. With a wallop.

I'm so overwhelmed by it all, I fall to one knee.

My brain is swirling with memories of everything that's happened over the past forty-eight hours. I'm standing where I was roughly two days ago. On the North Wyche castle tower, though it's not the middle of the night now. It's day time.

My parents were abducted and are being held prisoner by spider women, one of those women of which chopped off my right hand.

I look at my stump of a wrist now. I suppose it would have been much more of a shock to my system if when my hand was removed from my body, I'd had my mental faculties fully intact. I don't think I'd be coping very well at this particular juncture in time.

But! Things are what they are. And the fact of the matter is, I really want my hand back!

Now, what did the talking cat tell me?

Oh yes; find the keystone.

And so, standing straight, I push my shoulders back. Adjusting Degan's jacket best I can, I notice something odd and I look down.

Wasn't this thing covered in squid goo a few seconds ago?

It's true, I'm no longer a mess of guts and monster splatter. So I guess stepping through a foggy portal also works in cleansing ways.

Huh… who knew?

Wait a sec.

Don't be like that, Brain. I tell my mind.

I’m supposed to be able to think clearly now. I don't want to let my thoughts slip into denial of whatever crazy fiasco is afflicting my senses, at any given time.

Right. So. The keystone.

I have no idea what that is!

"Oh shit."

Deflating, I've lost hope and my shoulders hunch. Looking behind me I can see that the portal is still open. It looks like a foggy window hovering in the air.

Wait a second. Isn't this the same portal Degan came through, the night he burnt that key into my hand? I can see Crizma sitting on the other side of the portal. He looks blurry and distant, but he's still there.

Thankfully.

So when Degan burned the key into my hand, why did he do so on that fateful night? Was it three days ago now? Shoot, I guess my mind isn't as clear as it should be.

"Come on, Jac." I shout at myself out loud. There's no one up here on the turret anyway. No one to hear my insanity. No one to witness this portal thingy in action.

Somehow I think it's best that way. How would I even begin to explain a hellish portal to a North Wyche tour group?

I shudder to thing, and concentrate on the matter at hand, instead.

My hand.

This is all so much trouble and it comes down to the fact that I really do miss my right hand.

Degan burnt the key into my hand. A glowing key. Something else was glowing that night. Something I'm supposed to find.

The stone.

The keystone was glowing.

Looking up from my severed wrist, I spot the very stone I'm remembering.

The keystone is at the top of the arch in the doorway dead ahead.

I remember it glowing now. "That must be it!"

Everyone knows a keystone is central to any arch. And this particular keystone is just that. A stone for the key that was burnt into my hand. A hand that's no longer on my wrist!

Moving forward, I not only know I've sussed things out, I can feel it. I feel it in my arm! To be precise.

The closer I get to the keystone, the more I feel the pull of it in my silvered-wrist!

I'm directly underneath the doorway arch now and it's like there's a magnate in the stone directly above my head. I'm holding my arm straight up. I'm being pulled by the arm.

It's like that time I practiced skiing by grabbing onto a handle that would pull me up the hill. I didn't realize the strength of the pulley, so I wasn't holding on tight enough and the damn thing almost wrenched my arms from their shoulder sockets!

That's what's happening right now!

"Oh damn!" I howl in pain. "Let me go!"

If I don't do something quick, I'm going to be missing a whole arm, instead of just my hand.

I do the only thing I can think of and I jump.

The pull gives me incredible momentum. My whole body is pulled straight upwards. My severed wrist collides with the underside of the keystone. I'm now stuck and dangling by one arm, but at least the pulling sensation is gone. I feel like there's a force under my feet. The pulling is evenly distributed throughout my body. I no longer feel as though my arm will be wrenched from its socket.

"Now what?"

Here I hang. Is this my fate? To be forever connected to this stone? The keystone?

Wait just a second. I feel something. Something inside the stone! It's my hand! I know it is! It feels like I've got my right hand back and it's trapped inside the keystone! But it's attached to my wrist! I just know it is!

Testing things out. I give the fingers of my right hand a wriggle.

"Yes!" It's true! I have my hand back! "Now how the fuck do I get it out of this stupid stone?"

Struggling, I fling my legs about.

When that doesn't work, I grab my right arm with my free left hand. I try pulling downwards, but nothing budges.

"Shitstains!" I howl aloud. "Let my hand go godammit!"

Something's happening. If I'd known the keystone just needed a good telling to, I would have shouted at the thing ages ago.

Although, what's happening doesn't feel like anything to do with letting me go.

The keystone is glowing. Like it did three nights ago. It's bright enough to see in the day time.

"Oh no."

I don't know what's happening now. Is the light from the keystone reflecting off the symbols and swirls of sliver on my arm?

No!

The symbols are lit up of their own accord! Just like the keystone that my hand is trapped inside!

The glowing madness is so bright now, I have to shut my eyes and look away.

And the second I do…

Kablamo!

The keystone explodes into a million pieces above my head.

I drop hard onto my feet, but I don't fall. I'm steady as debris reigns down around me. There's rubble at my feet, but that's not what I'm bothered about.

I've got my right hand back.

Lifting it in front of my face, I kiss my own fist. "Oh hand! I love you so much weeeeeee!"

Suddenly, I feel like doing a cartwheel, so that's just what I do. Right over the pile of exploded rocks on the stone flooring.

Then, like a girl whose just been re-united with her missing hand, and is really, really pleased about it, which I am, I do another somersault. Though this one is entirely carried out mid-air!

I'm performing leaps and bounds like I've never been able to do. I just don't feel like walking back towards the foggy portal. And why should I? I'm once again the proud owner of two whole hands! If I want to celebrate by doing gymnastics along the castle walls, I'll damn well do so!

Springing onto the ledge, I hop from one rampart to the next, as though I was born to move like this.

Once I reach the edge of the wall, I jump and arc around mid-air, landing like a superhero on one knee, my newly replaced hand in the shape of a fist, and planted into the stone flooring.

"Damn." I growl in satisfaction. "I've always wanted to do that!"

I'm now facing the foggy portal. I step through and Crizma is there to greet me.

My world spins sideways for a second, with a phwump. And by the time I look behind me, the portal has closed.

"What have you done?" Crizma says to me in greeting.

"I got my hand back!" I hold it up for him to see, except I'm the one who ends up staring at my newly returned palm. "What the?"

My hand's still in a fist. When I open it something falls to the floor. It rolls along, stopping at Crizma's front paws. "Oh."

"Oh?" I question the cat.

"Yes. This will suffice."

"It will?"

Crizma backs away from the little pebble. "Pick up the keystone, Jaclyn."

"That's the keystone? But I thought—"

"You thought the castle keystone was the keystone."

"Umm… yeah."

Crizma backs further away. "No, this is the keystone, Jaclyn. Now would you please pick it back up?"

"Why are you acting so weird? You know? For a talking cat?"

"JUST PICK UP THE KEYSTONE PLEASE JACLYN!"

"All right!" I stomp forward and scoop the little green pebble off the floor. "This is pretty. Is it jade?"

"Now step away from the portal, Jaclyn."

"What? Oh." I do as Crizma says and the second I do the massive double stone door slam shut behind me.

"Whoa!" Whizzing round, I nearly drop the keystone again.

I hear Crizma breathe a sigh of relief. "You do not realize the power in which you wield, Jaclyn?"

"Do I not?" I look at the goggle-eyed cat, quizzically.

"No, you do not." He stalks forward, black tail held high, swishing in the air. "You just came through a portal of great power, holding a different portal of even more awesome power in your hand. You could have been utterly destroyed just now."

Umm. What? "When were you going to tell me this?" I rage at the cat.

"Would you have gone to collect the keystone if I had told you?"

"Probably not." I harrumph loudly and cross my arms, noting how I'm able to hold tight to each elbow with both hands, if I so wish.

It's nice having two hands again. You don't notice the little things until you're missing one.

"Well then there you are." Crizma snorts in reply to my harrumphing. "And now we can rescue your parents."

"We can?"

"Yes."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that, Jaclyn."

"With this?" I show him the keystone, but for some unknown reason Crizma looks away from it.

"Yes of course with the keystone, Jaclyn. I just told you it can open portals to other worlds."

"Other worlds?" He didn't tell me anything about other worlds.

"Never mind. Just do as I say."

Crizma has me open my hand and show him the key shaped burn in my palm. He nods his little head and says I should hold they keystone tightly against the burn.

I do as the cat instructs.

Suddenly, my hand starts vibrating. My palm feels warm. It's hotting up fast!

"Ummm… cat?" I'm starting to panic. "What's happening?"

"It will be fine, Jaclyn. Just hold tight to the keystone."

"But it's getting really hot!"

Crizma's head snaps up. His eyeballs look even bigger behind his magnifying goggles. "Drop it!"

Crap!

Crizma's warning has come too late.

I try to open my hand, but before I can there's a loud POP, and everything I know blips out of existence.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Correction. I blipped out of existence. Or rather, I blipped out of the room at the bottom of the escalator.

I have no idea where I am now.

What is this place? Is this even a place? It's like no existence I've ever known.

I’m floating in a dark blue void. It feels like I'm in the moment before I start to dream at night. I don't know if I'm trying to wake up, or if I'm so tired I could sleep for an eternity.

Whatever it is I'm feeling, it's subduing the more panicky parts of my mind.

Opening my fist, I look at the keystone. It's right on top of the key-shaped burn in my palm. A burn that is glowing with dim white light.

Shutting my fist, I notice the light pulses stronger, shimmering through my fingers.

There's also light pulsing in my peripheral. Actually all around in this strange dark bottomless void I'm floating in.

"What was that?" I whisper. My voice sounds weird. Like I'm talking inside a sound chamber. Muffled and barely audible.

Squeezing my fist again, gentle light flashes at the corner of my left eye.

I whip my head round, keeping the keystone pressed hard against the burning light in my hand.

There!

It's the source of light I saw like a flint in the back of my eye.

Wait. No. There!

More lights. Golden, glowing blips of light all around. They're getting brighter, coming closer.

I watch as shapes start to form around the sources of light.

Doors.

I'm looking at doors.

Here I float in a void of darkness, and hovering nearer to my are a bunch of doors.

All different kinds of doors.

Wooden doors. Doors made of metal. Single doors. Double doors. Even the doorway to hell that's carved from black marble.

In each door is a keyhole and through it are the sources of light. Shining through each keyhole glows the same hue of golden light that emanates from between my fisted fingers.

"Well that's flippin interesting."

Doors are ways through. I don't know where any of these doors might lead, but I should probably try to open at least one of them to find out. Otherwise I could be floating around in here for an eternity. And that would be incredibly boring.

The real question is, how do I get to any of these doors to try and open them?

I try pumping my legs and arms as though swimming.

That does nothing and I figure if anyone could see me now, they'd laugh. I look like an idiot flailing about.

I don't think I need to worry about the doors though, they're still all getting closer.

Actually, they are closing in on my at quite a rapid pace now. In fact, they might all crash into me and any second now I'll be smashed between doors!

"Stop!" I shout out loud.

And they do.

The doors I mean.

They stop floating towards me just like that.

And it's a good thing too. I'm surrounded so closely by doors of many kinds, there's not a crack between them I can slip through.

"What the hell do I do now?"

Testing a theory, I put my fist to one of the glowing keyholes in one of the wooden doors.

Nothing happens, so I try a new tactic.

I've got a key burnt into my hand. There's got to be some way of using that in one of these blasted key holes!

Opening my fist, I take the keystone out of my palm. I smash the key-shaped burn into the keyhole and still nothing happens.

I try this on as many keyholes that I can reach, but I'm at a loss as to what I'm supposed to try next.

At least I can move around a bit, but grabbing hold of door knobs and handles. I figure this is what being in outer space must be like as I float from knob to knob.

My train of thought makes me giggle. If I'm not careful I could lose my mind and start laughing uncontrollably. Then would come the tears, because now I already feel depressed.

I'm stuck in this cocoon of doors and I don't have the first clue about how to extricate myself from this odd prison.

Or do I?

There's a lot of glowing going on, so much that I failed to notice even more glowing inside the sleeve of Degan's jacket.

When I push it up, I notice my wrist is glowing in a solid golden line, like a light-up bracelet that's embedded in my skin.

I put the keystone back into the palm of my right hand. Once again I try to push my fist against door key holes.

Suddenly, my wrist snaps.

"What was that?"

Grabbing my right hand, I fear it's come loose!

"Nooooooo!"

This can't be happening! I just got my hand back and it's not even attached properly. The more I try to twist it back into place, the more my hand seems to be coming away from my wrist!

More light shines from the widening gap between my hand and wrist. The silvery symbols and swirls are shining and glowing too.

As a matter of fact, they're expanding.

I'm holding my hand steady and I watch as silver swirls and symbols etch further along the back of my hand. When I look down I see the same swirls creeping along my right collarbone, spreading under and on my skin. At this rate my whole body is going to be covered in strange silver swirls and symbols!

"Argh!"

I cry out as my right hand finally comes free of my wrist.

"Oh no!"

But wait. What's this?

"What on earth?"

I'm holding my right fisted hand in my left hand. It's come away from my arm and apart from the fact that this is really grossing me out, there's something interesting about the entrails at the bottom of my severed hand.

They aren't entrails at all.

The bottom of my right fisted hand is sealed in silver, and there's a skeleton key of solid gold poking out the bottom where it should be attached to my wrist.

"Oh. Oh no." I mumble in this muffled place. "This can't be happening."

My hand is a key?

I am literally holding my own fist in my hand, and I assume I can now use the key on any one of these doors.

Except, right now all I can think is that I don't want to open any of these doors. And not just because I don't know where they might lead, but because I really want to put my fist back onto my wrist, because this is really grossing me out!

So that's what I do. Instead of the obvious —putting my key fist wrist into a door key hole— I jam my fist back onto my wrist.

It clicks into place and I'm highly relieved.

"Hmmm. I wonder."

And just like that I get some courage.

I open my right hand.

Yes, they keystone is still there, smashed into the key-shaped burn in my palm.

I close my fingers around the keystone once again.

With my left hand I unscrew my fist. It clicks away from my arm and there's the golden key sticking out the bottom.

I do this a few more times, until I actually think this is totally cool. Way freaky, but quite brilliant as well.

"I have a key hand!" I shout out loud to no one.

Finally, I work up even more courage. I'm going to use my key hand on one of these doors.

Definitely not the double doors to hell. Nor the metal doors. They look military, like it would lead me to somewhere scary, or somewhere a bomb might go off.

I chose a pretty door in the end.

It's wood with shiny brass hinges. The handle is brass as well and the key hole beneath it is glowing with the brightest light.

And so, pushing off the one of the metal doors, I float towards the wooden one.

I detach my right hand in wonderment at the craziness of it all. I put the key of my hand into the key hole of the pretty door.

No surprises, it fits perfectly.

I turn my disembodied fist to the left. It clicks with zero effort.

I remove my key hand from the door and attach it back onto my wrist. After removing the keystone from my palm —and putting it into the pocket of Dean's jacket— I shake out my fingers.

My right hand is staying attached to my wrist.

"Hooray!" I'm pleased to shout this aloud, even though my voice comes out really quiet, with no echo at all.

As far as all the swirls and symbols covering my hand — correction… I look at my left hand to see it's covered in silver swirls and symbols too. When I push up the jacket sleeve, I find the silver goes as far up as I can push it.

So yeah, I'm probably covered in these strange symbols, and I really wish I had my phone on me so I could take a selfie and see what my face looks like.

When I touch the fingers of both hands to my face, I don't feel any raised swirls. Then again, none of the symbols on my body are raised. It's just my skin that has gone silver in swirling patterns.

It's weird. It's inexplicable, but maybe if there's someone behind one of these doors, they can explain a whole lot of things to me.

"Only one way to find out!"

I place my right hand onto the handle of the door I just unlocked. It turns easily.

Barely pulling, the door begins to open.

I'm not going to fling it open, or anything stupid like that. I don't know what could be on the other side!

Instead, I open the door inch by inch, very slowly.

I peek through the small slit of an opening I've made.

Bang!

The door slams wide open from an unseen force on the other side. I'm pushed back a ways as something crashes through into the void. It bounces off a door and ricochets back out from whence it came.

I'm left reeling in confusion as I peek my head out the open door way.

"Crizma?" I shout after the flying object.

Because that's who I think I just saw, except the talking cat seemed to have sprouted wings!

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

What a world. And I'm not just saying that in my mind because I recently watched The Wizard of Oz, and I'm convinced that's what the Wicket Witch of the West says when Dorothy melts her with water.

"What a world! What a world!"

Because that's what I'm looking at right now.

I'm floating behind an open doorway. On the other side of said doorway, can only be described to my own brain, as another world.

Definitely not the world I was born in. On?

I was born on Earth, yes. Is this Earth I'm looking at?

No. It can't be. I don't know anywhere on Earth that looks like what I'm staring at right now. And I would know, I've spent hours and hours on the Google Earth app, spinning the virtual globe round and round, zooming in on distant lands to the one of my birth.

But this? This city I'm staring at right now?

This is like no place on planet Earth.

No way, now how.

And didn't Degan mention something to me about not being from my world?

Well, I don't know what world he's from, but if it's the one I'm staring at right now, he's really got nothing to complain about being stuck on Earth.

Apart from the fact he's trapped inside a mountain of caves with my parents. Yeah, I'm going to have to close this door, aren't I?

I'm going to have to try all the other doors in this void until I find the one that leads me back to Earth, and back to my parents.

But wasn't that Crizma I saw a second ago?

Even if it wasn't the same cat, it was still a cat with goggles on it's head, and also wings on it's back, so…

"You!"

Talking of talking cats.

The one who just bounced around in the void, is back in my face. It's blocking out my view of the strange world beyond. Why? Because it's flying with it's wings and I can see this is a different talking cat, by the female voice that's coming out of its throat.

"How did you open this portal?" The cat shouts very loudly.

"Crizma?" I try the only talking-cat name I know.

This turns out to be the wrong name to say.

"Meowrrroowwerrrr!" The cat hisses and growls in my face. "This is all his fault!"

The cat floats aside so I can once again stare at the world before me.

I'm looking out onto a vast city. But it's like no city I've ever visited. It's like I'm looking into a time travel mirror, because all the buildings are dated no later than Victorian era, for sure.

Yet they're big. Some of the towers are really massive and high as Dubai skyscrapers!

Amongst the buildings of this vast city are flying creatures and what I can only guess are blimps. Some look like flying pirate boats with blimp balloons attached above to keep them afloat. Other ships in the air appear to be huge hot-air balloons, only the balloons are made of gold, silver, bronzes and other elaborate metals. And the baskets they're floating are big as two-storey buildings!

Despite all the oddities before me, there's one thing that stands out amongst the grandeur.

I'm not looking at a city intact.

Half the tallest buildings are crumbling and smoking. The air is thick with soot and it looks like this metropolis has just endured a recent attack of bombings.

If things weren't looking like the end of days out there, the word Steampunk springs to mind.

As a matter of fact, the wings attached to the flying cat in front of me, well they're leather in flaps, but the joints are brass cogs and covered in shiny symbols and swirls. Not unlike the symbols covering my body.

"What's my face like?" I ask the flying cat.

"What?" It hisses at me.

"Do I have sliver crap all over my face?"

Behind big eyes, goggled like Crizma's, the cat looks astounded. "You have the keystone."

"How did you know that? Oof!"

The cat punches into the void, and in doing so, she crashes straight into my chest.

I float backwards a bit and when the cat is free of me, she pushes off a door.

Slam!

"What did you do that for?" I yell at the cat who's just closed the doorway from which she came, twice now.

"You have the keystone. Only you can save our world now."

"I what? Your world? Wait—"

"There's no time!"

Using her wings, she flaps them crazily, to no avail.

"Those won't work in here." I point for no reason at the cat's wings. "It's like outer space in here. Wherever here is."

"You don't know what this place is?" Cat says.

"No. Do you?"

"Of course I do! Everybeing in the world knows what the keystone is!"

"Maybe in your world."

"Exactly, and if my world is destroyed, yours will be next. All these worlds will be doomed!"

The cat dramatically spreads her paws wide.

"You mean all these doors go to other worlds?"

"Yes." She lowers her paws. "And if you know about other worlds, you do know some things."

Taking in a deep breath of frustration, I'll worry about where the air I'm sucking down is coming from later.

"I don't really know about any of this other-world stuff. I just remember Degan talking about it and—"

"Degan!"

Again, I guess that was another terrible name to shout out.

Like when I'd uttered the name of Crizma, this cat goes crazy. Hissing and growling and flapping her mechanical wings about.

I'd try to hold her still with my own hands, but I don't want to risk getting anywhere near that berserk ball of fur, claws, and sharp teeth.

Not to mention jabby stabby looking pokey wings.

When the raging ball of black fur finally calms, I’m greatly relieved.

“Sorry about that.” The cat licks a paw and smoothes it over her head.

What a strange creature. Apart from the talking, the flying, and the goggle covered eyes. This feline has a serious anger problem.

“In my world we have counselors and self-help groups.”

The cat tilts her head questioningly at me. Floating there in this weird void with me.

“I think they’re called anger management classes. Though I think if you were to try it on Earth you’d freak everyone out, what with your talking. And flying. And goggle eyes.”

“I know perfectly well what you’re referring to, young lady.”

A young lady am I? How old is this cat anyway?

I try to speak and ask, but she cuts me off. “And on my Earth it’s rude to suggest someone see a counselor.”

“Your Earth?” I think she’s confused. I know I am. “No, I come from Earth. The planet through that door was not Earth.”

“Yes. It was. It is. Or what’s left of it after Crizma helped Degan the criminal!”

Say what now?

I don’t really know what to ask the cat about first, so I go back to the confusing world thing. “Earth?”

“Yes. My dear. Earth.” The cat sits on her haunches as though there’s a flat surface beneath her, which there most definitely is not. She looks like a photo taken of a cat sitting on a glass table, from underneath. I saw one online once with the tagline: ‘hovercat’. I thought it was well funny, and I think this cat is funny looking right now too. Even more so with the mechanical wings and magnified goggles over her eyes.

She continues to speak. “These doors all lead to realms of Earth’s. Different dimensions of Earth. My Earth of which is in extreme danger, as you probably saw through that door.”

I know perfectly well which door she’s referring too. It’s the one I’m leaning against right now.

“So if these are all doors to different Earth’s, do you know which one leads to my Earth?” I ask the cat. “Or the Earth I’m from anyway?”

Cat sighs. “My name is Warda.”

Oh. That’s nice, for a creature who’s burst into outrage twice before even introducing herself.

“I’m Jaclyn.”

“Pleased to meet you, Jaclyn.” Warda nods. “Now if you will use the keystone, we can locate your Earth. Upon arrival in your own world you will endow ownership of the keystone to me, and I will be able to repair the damage caused by Degan and Crizma, to our world—"

“Wait. Bestow the keystone? How am I supposed to do that?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll show you. Now, please procure the keystone.”

Well okay. I’ll do whatever this crazy cat says, but only because she seems to know what she’s talking about. I have no idea what’s going on. Less than three days ago I was thinking about quitting my job at New Look so I could apply to work at the next shop along the row of stores at the Retail Park. I think it’s Pound Stretcher, but I can’t remember anything normal right now.

I’m floating in a weird anti-gravity void. My mind currently has things other than my place of employment to think about.

“What the?” I’ve been digging around in the pockets of Degan’s jacket for the past minute and a half. “Where did I put that thing?”

I seem to have lost the keystone, and somehow I think that’s a big deal.

“You lost it?”

Oh no.

Oh no, no, no!

Cat… I mean Warda… has flown into a rage again. She’s spinning round and round in circles like a floating feline gone berserk. Fur is flying out of the blur that is the tornado her body has become.

When she finally calms and stills, her cat-voice is shrill with barely contained rage. “We’re trapped in here forever, you stupid girl!”

“Hey!” I shout, but it’s still muffled, this void still sucks sound quickly out of my throat, as soon as I say anything. “I’m not stupid! It your fault! It must have fallen out of my pocket when you crashed into me!”

“Oh!” Warda screams, and her voice is muffled too. I shudder to think what volumes she’s capable of on any of the Earth’s behind one of these doors. “The keystone must be in here somewhere!”

“Okay, don’t move!”

“I can’t go anywhere.” Now the cat’s voice sounds sarcastic.

“I know that!” Her rage is contagious. I’ve had it with this creature who shouldn’t be speaking, it ain’t natural where I come from! Talking cats. Sheesh. What else would I have to deal with speaking so rudely to me on her world? Well, I for one don’t aim to find out.

What I will find is the keystone. I’ll find it. Warda will show me which door leads to my Earth. I’ll gladly give her the keystone after that, and then I’ll be rid of this she-beast I barely even know! Who I don’t want to get to know, after only having known her for a few minutes!

Moving along the doors I push myself around the anti-gravity void. Floating around and around, looking for the keystone.

“It’s not in here.” I’m feeling very gloomy now.

“You think?”

“Shut up you stupid cat!”

Gloom turns to anger again, but I push down the rage. I don’t want to turn into a mouth-frothing anger-beast like Warda.

Hiss.

The cat hisses at me.

“Well I certainly hope you didn’t lock the door to my world then.”

“Me?” I hiss back, somehow. “You’re the one who shut us in here.”

“Just turn the handle, Jaclyn.”

I guess I’ve no choice. If the keystone fell out of my pocket into Warda’s world, I’m going to have to go through this door to find it. Or else…

No. I don’t want to think about ‘or else’ or ‘what if’. I don’t want to be stuck in another world, or this void, where the only creature I know is a very shouty and angry one.

Thankfully, the door knob turns easily in my hand. I pull the door open and Warda pushes off another door, zooming out of the void. She dives straight downwards and that’s when I realize I don’t even know what this door is set into. I’ve only ever looked out of it into the vast half-destroyed Steampunk city beyond.

And so, poking my head through the doorway, I look straight down.

I shouldn’t have done that. I really should not have done that at all.

I’m staring straight down a cliff into crashing waves of the ocean hundreds of feet below.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

How is it possible that I’m standing inside a cliff? Because I’ve put my feet on the ledge and I’m no longer floating around in the void behind me. Though from what I can see of the hundred-foot drop, I’m inclined to turn around right now.

For what good it will do, I don’t know. Without the keystone I apparently I can’t get through any of the doors inside the void.

“Crap!” This totally sucks bum cheeks. I think that because it’s something I would never do. Like scaling this cliff to get to the bottom. Not something I’m at all equipped to carry out in any way whatsoever. My friend Oliver from sixth-form was a pro rock climber. One of those crazy guys who could hold himself hundreds of feet off the ground, much like on a cliff like this one. He’d dangle there by like one finger and snap a pic of himself with a selfie-stick.

The crazy bastard.

I, however, am not crazy, and not at all trained at rock climbing. I mean, what’s the point anyway? There’s only rocks and ocean down there. The keystone is long gone and that means only one thing…

I’m stuck in this strange world.

“Double crap!” I scream just as Warda zooms back up into my face.

“It’s gone!” The cat screams over the high pressure winds. “They keystone is gone!”

“You think?” I manage a sarcastic infliction to my voice, even at high volumes.

“Wait here!” Warda zooms away, mechanical wings flapping. I can see out over this vast city, but she’s such a small creature that she disappears into the smoke and rising soot in no time flat.

“Where else am I gonna go?” This I mumble, so I can’t hear myself over the wind all around, and crashing waves below.

Staring out over the water and the city beyond, I try to comprehend the strangeness of it all.

Then, all of a sudden there’s a flash of lightning and Warda comes zooming out of the smoky gloom, towards me.

“What was that?” I shout at the cat.

“What was what?”

“That lightning. There’s no storm clouds in the sky, just lots of smoke.”

“It wasn’t lightning, Jaclyn. It was the castle shield.”

The what now?

I don’t have time to ask what the talking cat is on about, because the flash lights up the sky again.

Straight ahead is a sight I can’t quite believe I’m seeing.

A submarine made entirely of orange copper is flying through the air, and it’s headed straight towards us.

I’m at a loss for words. The scream of terror I was planning to release from my lungs, is firmly stuck in my throat. So I’m just standing here with my mouth and eyes in the shapes of a big O.

“Don’t worry your face, Jaclyn!” Warda screams and manages to meow at the same time. “The Charter Crypt is one of our top military vessels, it can stop on a keystone.”

I have no idea what the talking cat is talking about, even though it is capable of talking.

“Are you saying it’s not going to crash into us?” I seem to have found my voice out of sheer horror.

“Of course it will not!” Warda shrieks even louder, but not louder than the sound of the engine that’s driving, floating, or flying the massive submarine as it slowly nears. “Is that the noise of the engine?”

Whatever it is that’s powering the vessel, it’s groaning very loudly, and then…

Ting.

A sound like a chime tinkling once inside my head. I can’t see what’s happening as I’ve shut my eyes.

“Step aboard immediately, Jaclyn!”

I peek open one eye and find I’m staring at the tip of a needle. A copper needle. I open both of my eyes fully and I can see the needle is the tip end of the pointy-shaped flying sub. It’s aimed directly at my right eye. The whole ship has stopped a mere meter from my personage.

The pointed end I’m staring at starts peeling open and I’m reminded of the octopus thing that tried to eat me out of the gates of hell!

“Noooooo!” I scream, but before I push back into the void, I notice the point of the copper is peeling open, all the way back. Rounding in loops along the side of the submarine until I’m now looking into a gaping hole at the front of the vessel.

A long copper plank shoots out of the front of the sub, like a metal tongue. I step onto it in a daze.

Turning round, I watch in amazement as the submarine takes flight, backing away from the cliff and flying upwards.

I was inside a cliff. The door had shut behind me and there’s no sign of it anywhere. The further the submarine travels, the more I can see of where I emerged from.

It’s an island with a castle on top.

Actually, the castle is the island. The whole of the structure I’m staring at is built as though carved out of the very rock that is jutting out of the sea.

The metal plank I’m standing on moves backwards, while the walls peel in reverse, closing alongside me until I’m encased in darkness.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

It's dark in here, but not completely pitch black. I'm relying on my hearing more, because I can't see much. There's a low hum of power reverberating in my ears, I can feel this sensation all the way to my feet. It smells of copper in here, and air, pumped-in air. A metallic taste on the manufactured quiet breeze.

When my eyes adjust to the gloom I start to see a dim light all around. An orange glow. But where’s it coming from?

Turning round, I spot the source of light. It’s a small circle and it’s getting bigger, and brighter. It’s opening up like a solid wheel turning clockwise and spreading open from the center. The light blinds me momentarily, and I have to put up my trusty right hand to shield my eyes.

Oh how I love having the choice of two hands with which to do things. Okay so my right hand still isn’t fully connected to my wrist, but as long as I’m not inside that void holding the keystone, my hand seems to stay locked in place at its newly formed silvery seam on my wrist.

I can’t see all the silver swirls and symbols on my body right now, but what I can see is a gaping hole opening into the bowels of this strange airborne ship.

What I also see are silhouettes of people backlit by the light from within the vessel.

There’s hushed conversations going on all around me as people stream out onto the metal plank I’m standing on. When I turn back around I do so because even brighter light is pouring in from outside. The front of the ship is peeling open and it looks even weirder from where I’m standing inside this copper behemoth of a flying submarine.

Once the mouth of the ship is fully open the plank beneath my feet smoothly glides forward. If I were a flying cat and I was looking at this vessel from outside at an angle, I’d probably be staring at a massive copper squid with its tongue sticking out.

Hand on? Do squids have tongues?

I don’t know. And I really don’t care. What concerns me now is I’m being pushed out of the copper squid. The metal plank stretches toward a stone platform. We’ve flown right up to the castle. Less than two minutes ago I was climbing right out of the very cliff this castle is built on top of.

Spires and turrets jut high all around. The courtyard is massive with a wide expanse of stone tiles beneath my shoes.

People stream out of the submarine all around me. I’m jostled a bit by the crowd, so I fail to notice anyone’s apparel straight away. But once I do, I’m astounded.

Every woman present is wearing a corset, in some form or another. Whether it’s with a long Victorian dress, or leather trousers, corsets seem to be the height of fashion in this world.

And the men? Well, they’re dressed as Gents, is the best word that comes to mind.

Shaking my head I rub my temples with both of my index fingers.

“Mummy.”

I glance up when I hear a little girl’s voice. She’s standing right next to me wearing a very voluminous yellow dress with lots of lace trim. She looks like a little doll with her ringlets of black hair under her white bonnet. She’s also wearing goggles on her head, as though ready to push them down over her eyes at any moment. Everyone present has goggles. Whether they’re embedded into fancy hats, over their eyes, or perched on their foreheads.

“What is wrong with her face?”

My face? Is the little girl talking about me? Do I look weird with no goggles anywhere on my cranium?

I stop stressing my temples out and stand straight. A woman nearby gasps, and now I’m sure the little girl is talking about my face.

“What?” I ask the gathering crowd. “Have I got a booger on my nose, or something?” I really don’t like all this staring in my direction, that’s going on around here.

“She’s the keystone.” A woman whispers, almost solemnly. I assume she’s the little girl’s mother. They look a lot alike with their black curly hair. Also, she’s grabbed the child’s hand, so that’s a sure sign of familiarity, if I ever saw one.

“I’m the what?”

Zoom!

Warda the talking cat flies by, arching high into the air, then zooming back down again to hover just around nearby heads.

“This ditzy blonde is not the new keystone!” The cat hiss-talks.

“Are you calling me a ditz?” I frown deeply at the rude cat.

“But she’s marked!” Someone in the crowd shouts out.

“She can’t be the keystone!” The cat howls again. “The king will sort this out!”

Thankfully, the cat zooms off. I don’t need her attitude problem. What I need is to find the keystone so I can get back into the void, and get my butt back through the door to my own world. Who knows what’s happening to my parents right now? I’ve been gone ages and I’m beyond confused about everything that keeps happening to me!

“The keystone.” I blurt. “Yes I need to find the keystone.”

“But you are the keystone.” The little girl smiles up at me. “You are going to save us all from the Shadow.”

The what now?

“Ummm…” I mumble, unsure. “I just need to save my parents from the creepy spider women.”

Many people gasp aloud at what I’ve just said.

“Raknah.” Someone blurts.

“Yes!” I reply, looking around to see who said the name of the psycho smiley woman.

The crowd clears a path for me just as Warda comes zooming along. She buzzes angrily around my head and I’m tempted to shoo her away like an annoying fly.

“Make way for the king!” The cat howls.

I stop walking forward. Looking around I notice the looks on people’s faces. There’s a lot of eye rolling going on for the announcement of a king. I’ve never met a king, but shouldn’t there be a lot more fan fare happening right about now?

An approaching clanking noise catches my attention. The crowd parts again, directly ahead.

There’s a living suit of armor walking over the paved stones. Each step it makes bangs quite loudly on the ground, but that’s nothing compared to all the whirring gears and cogs all over the suit that seem to be powering the thing forward.

“Your king is a robot?” I ask innocently enough, but my question enrages Warda nonetheless. I’m starting to get the idea that the flying cat has serious rage issues.

“How dare you speak of our great king thusly?” The furious feline buzzes round my head before flapping her mechanical wings, and landing by the foot of the robot king.

“That’s our king all right.” Glancing to my right, I spot a girl my age. She has long curly brown hair that’s half done up in a metallic fascinator, and half pouring down her back. She’s wearing a corset covered in copper cogs and doodads, over a puffy black silk shirt. Combined with the tight leather trousers and black knee high boots she’s sporting, her look is as strong as her stance, with her arms crossed in front of her narrowed waist. “He’s inside that contraption if you can believe it hah!”

My eyebrows are raised. The girl slaps her knee and barks a laugh. She saunters toward me, eyes at the same height. “Our king is a bit of a syoo.”

She winks and basically Warda loses her shit.

“What’s a syoo?” I ask casually while Warda hisses and snarls at the brown-haired girl I’m talking to. Honestly, I’m already used to the outbursts of the angry cat.

“A syoo?” The girl says. “Our king is a wimp. He’s encased himself in that contraption for years. Won’t come out. Says there’s too many germs and people who want to kill him in this world.”

She turns to look at the metal suit that is her king. “It must really gop in there.”

“Gop?”

“Stink.”

“Right.” Such weird words they have in this world.

“You must be from Metal Earth.” The girl sticks out her hand. “I’m Parthenia. Welcome to Earthen Wood.”

I take her hand and shake it firmly. I like this girl. She’s nice. Which is more than I can say for the first creature I met in this crazy world. I never even knew more Earth’s existed and when I do find out it’s by meeting a crazy talking flying angry cat. How unlucky is that?

“Are you okay?”

The girl looks concerned. I’m still shaking her hand, trying to sort out what this feeling is that’s suddenly washing over me.

Oh I know what’s happening!

“She’s gonna faint!” Someone shouts all too late.

I fall to the pavement and hit my head hard on the ground.

The last thought that flits through my mind is the question of whether or not it was the shock of my predicament that’s killed me, or hitting my head on solid stone that’s finally done me in.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

When I wake up I discover I’m not dead, so that’s cool. Sort of. I may be alive, but what kind of life is this that I am now subject to existing in?

According to what my eyes can see, it’s a palatial existence.

“Where am I?”

Sitting up, I rub my eyes. Something gleams and I forgot about my silvery skin while I was deceased… I mean, unconscious.

“You’re inside the palace!” A girl’s voice echoes loudly inside the grand chamber with soaring ceilings. “Isn’t this yoobz?”

Oh. I know who that is. It’s the girl who says weird words.

Parthenia.

That’s her name, and when I look up from the red velvet chair I’m sat upon, I see her standing over me with a huge grin on her face.

“Yoobz?” I ask her, feeling slightly groggy.

“Exactly! It’s amazing in here! I’ve never been inside the palace before!”

I’m guessing ‘yoobz’ means something excitable, because that’s what Parthenia is right now.

Hang on a second. “Is that a mirror?”

I thought I was staring at a massive entrance-way, but no, it’s definitely a huge mirror on the wall, with an ornate gilt frame.

Jumping up, I feel okay and surprisingly steady on my feet. I head straight for the mirror and when I see my reflection, I’m gobsmacked.

“My face.” I mumble, touching my cheek. “My hand.”

Parthenia comes up behind me. She doesn’t say anything, just watches me looking at myself in the mirror.

I’m covered in silver swirls and symbols. “What does this mean?”

“What?” Parthenia replies. “The symbols? Or the fact that they’re on you?”

“Both.”

“Well.” She looks excited again. “Are you going to faint if I tell you?”

“Maybe.”

The girl shrugs. “Okay well the symbols are those created by the first keystone, and the reason you’re covered in them is because you are the new keystone.”

I haven’t fainted, so that’s a good sign.

“She is not the keystone!”

Warda comes whizzing into the room. She’s not flying though. She’s walking round and round at the feet of the armored king. I’m surprised the annoying cat doesn’t get squashed under the heavy footfalls of the mechanized man.

Do I wish she’d get squashed?

I’m not even going to contemplate that, only because I don’t have the time for it.

“Why are you such a nonk, Warda?”

“A nonk?” I question Parthenia.

“Basically that cat is a huge jerk!”

She doesn’t need to tell me that. Well, apart from clearing up what the word ‘nonk’ is.

“I’m sorry, Jaclyn.” Parthenia looks at me with tilted head. “I know you’re from a different realm. I’ll try to speak straight English of Metal Earth for you, okay?”

“Metal Earth?”

“Oh yes sorry I—"

“No, it’s fine. I like my world being called Metal Earth. It’s very rock and roll.”

“Rock and roll?”

Now we are confusing each other.

Warda interrupts our casual, yet confusing, conversation anyway. “His majesty is destined to be the new keystone!”

I’m not listening to the crazy cat. I’m not even paying much attention to the slow gait of the armored king. I’ve returned my gaze to my own reflection.

Pulling at Degan’s jacket, I take it off. My black shirt is short-sleeved, so I can see all the silver symbols and swirls running up and down my arms.

“You are in serious denial, Warda.” Parthenia says to the cat. “Jaclyn is definitely the keystone.”

How can I be a keystone. What she’s saying doesn’t make any sense.

“You were only allowed in here for the sake of her sanity, Parthenia!” Warda hisses and howls. “Remember your place, girl!”

“Warda, please be at ease.”

That was unexpected. I’ve torn my gaze away from my reflection at the deep voice that’s come from inside the king’s copper helmet.

Parthenia looks surprised too. We both turn around.

The suit of copper armor moves its arms. The metal hands clasp the helmet and start pulling it off.

“But sire!” Warda flies into the air. “You must remain protected!”

“Not much point in it anymore, is there Warda?”

His helmet is off. He flicks long-ish black hair out of his face. Someone gasps.

Oh. It was two gasping people. Two gasping girls, to be precise.

Parthenia and I look at each other, giggle knowingly, and glance back at the king who is in fact a major hunk.

He is strikingly handsome with turquoise eyes that seem to gleam with vibrancy.

The king pushes some buttons on his suit of cog armor, and vapor billows out under pressure in various locations. When the suit fully opens up, the king falls out onto the floor.

“Oops!” He says, jumping straight back up again onto his feet, walking forward one step, and immediately tripping himself up again on his own ankles.

“Maybe he should stay in that suit for his own safety.” Parthenia mumbles to me out the corner of her mouth.

“Sorry about that!” The good looking king finally rights himself, approaches, and extends his hand. “I’m Rogan. Pleased to meet you.”

We all three spend the next few seconds crashing hands together, trying to decide who’s shaking hands with who first.

This king guy is really awkward. Even though he could be super charismatic with his mega good looks and ripped body, he’s just a total klutz!

As for the ripped-ness, I can see that he’s very toned underneath the brown tweed vest he’s wearing over a white shirt. His dress sense is decidedly Victorian, like everyone else around here. The boots on his legs are black leather, I think. There are so many straps and buckles on his apparel, combined with cogs and strange little devices.

Come to think of it, there are many gears and odd looking pockets all over Parthenia’s ensemble as well.

“Ehem!” Warda interrupts our failed attempts at handshakes. “At least introduce yourself properly, your highness.”

“No need for that, Warda—"

The cat cuts her king off mid-sentence, which surprises me considering how much the chatty feline seems to adore his majesty.

She flutters to the ground and opens her mouth, showing her fangs, and Parthenia cuts her off…

“The king’s proper name is Rogan Lon Magenis Fulton Horgan Vis Benkun Keystone the Infinite.”

I look from her to the king who shrugs his shoulders, kinks his neck in the process, and has to rub it out with his hand and a look of annoyance on his fine face. “Like I said, just call me Rogan.”

Warda snorts. “At least make them refer to you as the keystone, your majesty.”

“Why, Warda?” The king turns around, too quickly. He twists his ankle and falls flat on his face.

“Ouch.” He mumbles into the floor, while Parthenia and I just stand stock still, not knowing what to do with this klutz of a king.

He sits up.

“Don’t!” Parthenia and I shout at the same time, both on the same train of thought about the king actually standing up, and basically subjecting himself to probably falling over again immediately.

Rogan the Infinite, or whatever his long name, takes our advice. He sits there and we join him on the floor.

“I was going to say,” he smiles and speaks. “There’s one way we can prove you’re the keystone, Jaclyn.”

I’m a bit taken aback when he says my name. Someone must have told him what it was when I was passed out.

“Yes there is.” Parthenia agrees with the king.

“There is?” I question them both, suddenly feeling light-headed again.

I should probably show more interest in what they’re talking about, but I think I’ve realized something more immediately important. “Can you tell me later?”

Now it’s me who gets stared at weirdly.

“Yes!” Warda agrees with me, which is surprising. “We shouldn’t do anything in great haste, your majesty.”

“You just don’t want to find out the truth!” Parthenia shouts at the cat. “Face it, Warda. You’re in denial.”

“I beg your pardon?” Hiss.

“Let’s just get on with it. Jaclyn, summon the keystone.”

Hmmmm? Is she talking to me? I’m so dizzy. “What?”

“Just call to the keystone.” Parthenia instructs me. “Warda said it was lost in the sea. Tell it to come to you in your mind, Jaclyn. Say it out loud.”

What? Just like that? Is she telling me if I ask it to, the keystone will come to me right out of the ocean?

“Could I get something to eat first?”

That’s my response. I can’t really think about anything else at the moment. I’m starving and I think it’s the reason I passed out.

“Stalling.” Warda says. “Yes eating is what you need, is it?”

Parthenia scowls at the cat. “She’s legitimately hungry. It’s probably because of the doorshift.”

“The doorshift?” I question Parthenia.

“The void you were mumbling about in your sleep, Jaclyn.”

“Oh.”

I think I know what she’s talking about. Then again, there’s a darkness moving behind my eyes. My brain really wants sustenance, or sleep, possibly even death if I don’t get some food and drink in me soon.

“Is this what you need?”

The king himself has brought a bag to me. When did he get up off the floor without immediately falling back down?

It’s my bag though! So I’m not overly concerned with King Rogan’s klutziness, or lack thereof. Not when he’s got the sack of food I had before I entered the void! Or the doorshift! Or whatever!

I’m so hungry I make the mistake of standing up right when Rogan nears. He startles easily and pulls back. The bag goes flying out of his hand, up into the air, lands on the floor, and the klutzy king trips and falls right onto it, squashing everything inside flat.

Well, that’s it then. I’m suddenly overwhelmed with dizziness. I’ve never fainted in my life and now I’m about to pass out again within the space of mere minutes. Then again, I’ve never experienced any of the craziness that’s happened to me lately.

How can I be expected to stay on my feet?

I can’t, and I fall.

Surprisingly enough, I’m aware that it’s Rogan who catches me before I hit the floor.

I don’t think I’m completely losing consciousness this time. I’m aware of being lifted and carried somewhere. My focus goes in and out of darkness and streaks of light. I’m aware of sitting down. Someone puts a plate of fragrant food in front of me on a table. I breathe inwards and somehow manage to suck down every last bite in, seemingly in one go.

No. Surely I chewed. I can’t eat via my lungs. I’m not sure though. So dizzy. So weak.

More carrying of my body by someone.

I’m lying down now.

I should sleep.

Tossing and turning.

Shadows close in.

I fall into fitful unconsciousness where my dreams are plagued by utter darkness.

The only source of light barely filters through the edge of my peripheral vision. The keystone pulses golden at the bottom of a great cliff, under the waters of the sea. Everything else is shrouded in shadow. The shadow. It senses me. It presses down upon me. There’s nothing I can do to escape its darkness. I’m enveloped in shadows and the even the glow of the keystone goes out, and with it any and all hope of light.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“Argh!” I wake up screaming. Luckily my Dad is here to calm me down. “Oh Dad, I had the weirdest dream. I was in another world, but it was still Earth somehow and then a shadow crept over me—"

“A shadow?”

Wait a sec. That’s not my dad’s voice.

Sitting fully upright I come face to face with Rogan, the king of this weird world, and I realize I didn’t dream any of it.

“I’m actually stuck here.” This statement is made from my throat with the grumbling sound of utter despair. “It wasn’t a dream.”

But where is here, exactly?

“Yes, sorry Jaclyn.” Rogan helps me to sit up straighter against the end of the red velvet sofa I’m lying on. “But you aren’t stuck, as you say.”

“I’m not?” Whatever can he mean by that? I know how to get out of here. It involves separating my hand from my wrist, but I also need to know which door to unlock within the strange void. So yeah, I’m confused about not being stuck in this strange world.

And strange is what this room is too. It’s circular, with a floor to ceiling window on an entire half of one wall. At least, I think it goes all the way to the floor, I don’t know for sure because of all the paraphernalia on tables and shelves.

There are small devices, and huge mechanic contraptions about in here. Most seem to be made of orangey copper. There’s a low hum of energy about the place, and I swear I can hear whispers coming from a clockwork jewelry box on the table near the arm of the sofa I’m sat on.

“No, you’re absolutely not stuck here, Jaclyn.” Rogan answers my question while I gaze around in awe. “Because I do believe your friend Parthenia is right in that you are the new keystone.”

I don’t know how to respond to that for a moment. So I just sigh loudly and sink down into the sofa. “I’m a stone?”

Rogan looks contemplative. “Ah no, sorry. That’s not what I meant exactly.”

He stands up, puts his hands behind his back and paces the floor, looking contemplative and quite regal, if I’m being honest.

It doesn’t last long though. Soon enough he trips over an invisible object on the hard wood flooring. There are lots of object in this room, but when the king fell, I seriously didn’t see anything other than his left foot that got in his way.

“Oh my goodness.” Sliding off the sofa. I tuck down beside him. “Are you all right?”

"I'm fine." Rogan looks worried. "You should be up, you're too weak. Your friend has gone to get you more food."

I don't really know Parthenia, but she has proved to be ever so nice, so yes, he can call her my friend after just having my met the girl like a couple of hours ago.

It's dark outside though, so maybe I've miss judged the length of time I've been here.

"I'm okay now, I've totally eaten enough." Helping Rogan to his feet, I prove my strength has returned by steadying him when he nearly falls right back down.

“Thank you.” Rogan looks frustrated with his clumsiness, so I don’t say anything about it. He scratches awkwardly behind his ear, and no one speaks for an awkward moment.

“So…” I break the silence. It’s not like I’ve got time to linger. Who knows what’s happening to my parents right now? I don’t really want to think too deeply on that, but my main priority is getting to them and somehow extricating them from the captivity of the spider women. “What’s with all this stuff?”

My question seems to snap Rogan out of whatever he was contemplating. We all have our distractions and worries. I know that first hand with extreme immediacy. If what Parthenia said is true, that I can call the keystone to me, then I want to try it so I can get back to my own Earth like ASAP!

“Sorry, Jaclyn.” Rogan smiles a bit. “This stuff is the reason I brought you here. I thought it could help with whatever’s plaguing you, because you shouldn’t be fainting all the time.”

“I shouldn’t? But I was just hungry and now I’m full so I’ve got energy and—"

“That’s just it though. You shouldn’t need to eat. You’re protected by the keystone.”

“I thought I was the keystone?”

That gets a snort of a laugh from this guy who is quite a young king. He’s probably the same age as myself and Parthenia, who I’m also guessing is eighteen.

“Yes, sorry.” Rogan apologizes again. “This must all be quite confusing for you.”

I nod, yes, in total confirmation of that. I’m confused as hell.

“I think I should start from the beginning, and explain things to you about the first Keystone, and the Shadow.”

I can practically hear the capital letters when he says ‘Keystone’ and the ‘Shadow’, so I’m guessing both are quite important.

Carefully, and ever so slowly, probably so as not to trip himself up. Rogan the king of this other world to mine of birth, moves to the velvet sofa, and tells me to join him in sitting down on it.

I do so, and he starts speaking. He tells me about the original keystone who was a girl of similar age to myself.

She was princess at the time of the coming of the Shadow, exactly one-thousand years ago to this day. Her name was Eyrga, and he leaves the description at that, because I’m perfectly aware that royalty have long names in this world.

Eyrga was the first of this world to meet the Shadow. She was out on the sea below the castle when the darkness moved in over her ship, like a lightless cloud made only of shadow. It communicated with Eyrga and stayed with her as a darkness when she came back into port.

The Shadow enveloped this very castle in the skies above, all the way down to the waters of the sea. There was nothing the king and queen could do to brighten the palace and surrounding air. And their daughter Eyrga went into the North tower where she shut herself away from the world for years.

While sequestered the Shadow taught its ways of power to her. That is why we have the devices and mechanical capabilities of today.

Finally, the day came when Eyrga left this tower. This very room.

She recognized the sadness and frustration she had brought to her parents. They had fled the darkness surrounding the castle. She had been abandoned and there was no one left in the palace or the grounds anywhere.

Eyrga was kept alive by the power of the Shadow while she was in the tower room. She didn’t need to eat or require normal sustenance to survive.

Word spread that Eyrga had left the tower and her parents, the king and queen, promptly returned. The island castle was re-populated and this was something the Shadow did not like. Eyrga could feel the Shadows displeasure, but she chose to ignore it and shared her new findings of power with the world.

Over time Eyrga communicated less and less with the Shadow, and it slowly lifted, finally freeing the castle from darkness all together.

Years passed. Eyrga shared more of her powerful secrets with engineers, mechanics, and people who had a penchant for creating devices and machines.

There was power in symbols. Just because the power could not be seen by human eyes, didn’t mean it wasn’t there. The Shadow revealed the power of symbols to Eyrga. It showed her how to harness it into objects that were visible and tangible to mortal eyes and hands.

One day, the Shadow returned, but it did not only cast its darkness over the castle. It shrouded the entire city. It filled citizens hearts with rage and they warred against each other.

Eyrga tried to communicate with the Shadow, to get it to understand compassion, but it did not hear her, so she was left to her own devices.

She went back into the tower room and searched and searched for the one object she had created without the Shadow’s knowledge, all those years ago.

It was a key.

A gold skeleton key with elaborate carvings and symbols Eyrga had carved into the key under a microscope she had invented herself.

Eyrga took the key and strapped mechanical wings onto her shoulders, on her back. She flew to the highest point above the floor to ceiling window. There she stuck the key into the rectangular stone. When she turned the key once to the right and pulled, a pebble-sized bit came out, attached to the teeth of the key.

With the keystone in hand Eyrga flew down and out through the open door.

She carried on away from the castle and straight down towards the ocean waters crashing below.

When she got to about halfway between the surface above, and the waters below, she halted mid-air.

This was the place where she’d first seen the Shadow emanate from. Not like so much black smoke, but by a strange shroud that grew out from the cliff-face.

Feeling along the rock wall, Eyrga’s long black hair was whipped up by the wind into a tornado, threatening to tangle in her mechanical wings.

Her fingers found the spot in the cliff-wall. She pushed the key with the stone on the end into the rock. From the moment she made contact there was no need to keep pushing, because she was now being pulled.

The keystone pulled her arm into the side of the cliff, further and further. Eyrga’s body soon followed and she vanished into the rock.

The Shadow felt her now. It could not deny her communication. It retreated from the city and light and kindness reigned once again. The people were confused about their anger towards each other, but now no one fought.

The Shadow moved into the cliff where it met Eyrga floating in its void. But there were new things here.

Doors.

Eyrga was constructing doors at a rapid pace.

There was no time within the void. The Shadow only discovered Eyrga had been inside the void for decades, once it had entered the cliff. In that time Eyrga had visited other worlds. She began building doors for each world and when the Shadow arrived, she was ready.

She trapped the Shadow behind the final door, and emerged from the side of the cliff. Stone in hand, and key embedded into the other as a burn. Her body was covered in gold and silver symbols and swirls and from that day on she was known as The Keystone.

Upon her deathbed Eyrga opened her palm. The gold key floated up out of her hand and the white burn vanished. The key floated there and she turned to her only son. She pressed the key into his hand, but it would not take.

Eyrga died and once again the Shadow escaped its prison within the cliff, now more enraged from solitude than ever before. It shrouded the world with rage. Eyrga’s son, Prince Bej, was immune to the Shadow’s rage when he held the key tightly in one hand, and the stone in the other. He went into the tower room, searching for ways to defeat the Shadow, when he noticed the stone at the top of the window glowing golden and bright.

Like his mother before him Prince Bej now put on mechanical wings and flew up to the stone. He only had to get close to it and the key in his hand began to embed itself into his skin.

The Prince dropped the stone while the key burned it’s way into his hand. He cried out from the pain, but soon recovered and found the stone once again.

He flew out of the tower and down the side of the cliff. Doing as his mother had always instructed him Prince Bej was able to once again trap the Shadow within the void now called the doorshift.

Over time many have inherited the key and the stone, but it’s the keystone that ultimately decides who can wield the power. And every time someone properly inherits the keystone, the more their flesh becomes embedded with symbols of protection.

The Shadow has escaped from the doorshift many a time, but the keystone has always chosen wisely when it comes to the Shadow.

Many descendants of Eyrga have visited other worlds through the doorshift, when the Shadow has escaped. They returned with tales from many realms, in their search for ways to once again confine the Shadow inside the doorshift.

“Do you know what I think, Jaclyn?”

Rubbing my eyes, I zone into the fact that Rogan is asking me a direct question. He’s told me such a long story, I’d forgotten where I was for a moment. My mind has been filled with visions of the Shadow.

“What’s that?” I finally answer him.

“I don’t think the keystone’s have been the only one’s visiting other worlds. I think the Shadow has too.”

His hypothesis sends a shiver of worry down my spine. “You think the Shadow has been to my Earth? Through the doors in the void? I mean, the doorshift space?”

Rogan nods. “I’ve heard tales of dark times from your world, Jaclyn.”

If I think about it, he’s right. When I first looked out at the city of this world, I noticed a darkness about it, as though there was a shadow cast over it, even through the smoke of bombed out wreck and ruin.

I can’t sit down anymore, I’m too worried. So I stand up and start pacing about. There’s not much room to move in here, what with all the paraphernalia around the place, so I’m forced to a stand-still quite soon.

“My world has definitely had it’s fair share of dark times.” I admit aloud.

Rogan moves to stand up, but I shake my head no. I don’t want him to fall over any time soon.

So instead, he clears his throat. “I think you should call the keystone to you, Jaclyn.”

The sound of approaching footsteps transfers my surprise at the king’s suggestion, onto the arrival of Parthenia. She’s standing in the double open doorway with a tray in her hands.

“Chok-oh-lett!” She shouts with much enthusiasm, bringing the tray into the tower room and setting it down onto the only available space, which just so happens to be the cushion on the sofa I just stood up from.

There, on the tray is the darkest muffin I’ve ever seen.

“Oh!” I exclaim happily. “You mean chocolate!”

“Yes.” Parthenia clasps her hands in front of her, and smiles. “You kept shouting that out in your sleep, so I fixed the squashed contents of your sack.”

Ah, I think she means the bag Rogan sat on earlier.

Picking up the succulent looking chocolate muffin, I lick my lips longingly. “How did you fix a squashed muffin?”

“In the shoven, of course.”

“The shoven?”

“Yes!” Parthenia gives me a funny look, as though she’s having to explain something to a particularly thick child. “You shove the ingredients in and minutes later your food is cooked.”

“Oh! You mean an oven that you shove stuff in? That’s genius! I really need to see this shoven thing. It sounds brilliant!”

I take a bite of muffin and it’s as chocolaty and delicious as I imagined. But when Warda zooms into the room suddenly, on mechanical pumping wings, I nearly choke.

Rogan springs into action. He stands and smacks my back. Half chewed muffin bits go flying from my mouth. The king goes flying too, probably tripping over the momentum of putting his arm down, which would come naturally to anyone else, but not to Mr Klutzo Himself.

He steps directly onto the muffin bits I just orally eschewed, slips, and does the splits in his handsome tweed suit. Falling to the floor in a painful display of stretched out legs.

“Your majesty!” Parthenia helps him quickly onto the sofa while Rogan moans in quite a lot of pain.

“I really need to stretch more. Life is awful after living it mostly in that suit.”

Oh. I think he’s talking about that suit of armor. If he’s usually ensconced in it, I can see why his motor-skills aren’t exactly normal when he’s not propped up by an exo-skeleton of metal.

“That’s on you, cat.” I mumble at Warda as she lands next to Rogan on the arm of the sofa. “You startled me and made your king guy fall.”

I fully expect a nasty retort from the horrid feline, but she just glares at me with her magnified goggle eyes, before whispering something into Rogan’s ear.

“I think she should.” The king has recovered from his unintentional yoga position fall. He sits up and looks me directly in the eye. “Jaclyn, call the keystone.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Parthenia and the king chime together.

“Yes, okay.” I agree, just so they can stop asking me to do this. I’m tired of Warda arguing with them as well. “Oh thee keystone!”

I throw both of my wonderful hands —that I’d never take for granted ever again— into the air for dramatic effect. “Come to me great keystone of the sea, the earth, the sky, the…”

What other element can I mention for no reason whatsoever?

“Gold!”

I like gold. It’s pretty.

“Oh keystone not made of gold I command thee to magically come to me as if by… well… magic!”

Parthenia scoffs. “I’ve heard about magic from your world, Jaclyn. There’s no such thing.”

“But what about all the magic here?” I ask her point blank.

“That’s not magic, silly. It’s pure power.”

Right. Whatever. I’m knew here and everything seems very magical, so that’s how I’m going to perceive it.

“Well, that didn’t work.” I slap my hands down to my sides. And then something smacks me in the forehead. “What the what?”

Rubbing my head, I look down as something clatters along the floor.

“It’s the keystone!” Parthenia jumps up from the sofa. “You did it, Jaclyn! You are the keystone!”

Oh. I think she’s right. It is the keystone. The green pebble is right there on the floor by my left shoe.

“Well what do you know?”

Bending, I move to pick the stone up, but before I can clench my fingers onto it, Warda attacks.

She’s a flying furball of claws and feet, and she’s flinging them all at my head. Tendrils of my blonde hair whip up and all around. I feel a slash of skin open up on my cheekbone.

“Warda, stop!” I hear Rogan cry out, but I can’t see anything.

There’s an almighty thud and finally the assault on my personage comes to an end.

Pushing my hair away from my face I find the entire sofa has toppled over onto its front, with Parthenia and the king underneath.

When I look down I see the keystone is gone, and so is the crazy flying cat.

CHAPTER TWENTY

“Are you guys okay?” Bending, I place my fingers onto the upside down sofa. Just before I’m about to lift, something happens to the symbols and swirls on my hands, and the joint where my wrist is weirdly severed, beams bright gold and silvery too.

I pull upwards and the sofa goes flying. It does two flips in the air, landing just behind the ducking Parthenia and Rogan with a clomping shudder and thud.

“Woops.” I apologize for whatever it is I just did. “Guess I don’t know my own strength.”

Rogan stands, slowly, carefully. “That is the power of the keystone. Now call it back to you, Jaclyn.”

“Okay.” I salute the kingly dude, turn, and face the open doorway. I don’t make a mockery of the situation this time. I just call to the keystone simply, while Parthenia gets up and stands close to Rogan. I think she’s there to support him, should he fall, which he could do at any given moment. “Keystone! Come to me!”

Parthenia snorts a laugh. “That will work.”

“What’s funny?” I look at her.

“You don’t have to call to the keystone out loud.”

“Don’t I?” I look at Rogan who shakes his head no. “So I just think it to me?”

Both Parthenia and the king nod yes this time, so I give it a go.

Concentrating hard, and probably looking like a toddler standing up going for a poo in her nappy, I screw up my face and think the words, ‘come to me oh great keystone!’

They don’t know the words I’m thinking, so I can make them elaborate if I want to.

Nothing happens though.

Parthenia looks contemplative with a finger on her chin. Rogan looks worried and angry at the same time. I understand his look of frustration. He was betrayed by his talking cat just now. Who knows how long he’s known the feisty feline?

“We’d better get after her!” Rogan shouts about Warda, takes one step forward, and fall flat on his face. “Cuff!”

“Oh!” Parthenia looks appalled, but I don’t think it’s because the king has fallen, again. “Such language from royalty!”

Language? I don’t know what Cuff means here, but in my world it’s the wrist area of a shirt worn by pretentious men with cuff-links to hold the ends together, when buttons will do.

That doesn’t really matter right now though. There’s something strange in the king’s hair. “What’s that?”

Bending, I flick Rogan’s hair aside at the same time he moves. My finger catches on something and a small device comes away in my hand.

Rogan looks astonished sitting on the floor, but I think he’s also wary about trying to get up, knowing he will probably fall over again if he tries something normal to every other grown-up I’ve ever met.

“What have you done?” He looks up at me, his eyes look more worried than ever. “That was my only hope of balance.”

“You what?” I look at the small object in my hand. It’s a tiny mechanical spider, much like the one I saw being used to somehow control my parents.

Oh my parents. I really need to get to them. Who knows what that evil smiley woman is doing to them with the help of her spider women clones, or whatever the hell those creepy creatures are.

Something dawns on me though.

“What’s this for?”

Parthenia looks at the spider in my hand. “Seriously?” She gasps. “You have a device of Raknah who was banished?”

“It was given to me by…"

I look at Parthenia and we both wait for the king to finish what he was going to say.

Eventually, he sighs loudly. “It was given to me by Warda.”

My eyebrows are raised. “Warda who just smashed you with a sofa and flew out of here with the keystone? That Warda?” I take a wild (rhetorical) guess.

“Umm… yes.” I think something is dawning on the king. “She gave it to me to help with my errm… balance.”

Parthenia puts her fists on her hips. “Stand up, your majesty.”

He does as she says, and quickly too. Like a shot, he’s up and standing steady. Not only that, when he walks toward the open doorway, he doesn’t trip up at all.

“Could it be?” Rogan looks amazed, at his feet. He’s staring at his feet, shaking them out one after the next. He does a twirl and faces us. “I’ve been such a fool.”

Then, he does a back flip.

“Wow!” Parthenia exclaims. “You sure were a fool to trust Warda!”

“Yeah.” I exclaim too. “Couldn’t you tell that cat was a massive bitch?”

Because that’s what this is. It’s obvious to us all right now. If the king got the spider device from Warda to ‘help’ with his balance, then the opposite was true. Now that the spider is no longer attached to his head, he’s not a klutz.

“But why a spider?” I look down at the small device in my hand. “Does this have something to do with the spider women? With Raknah?”

“Probably.” Parthenia visibly shudders. “I was so glad when she was banished to your world, Jaclyn.”

“Ummm… what?”

I’m curious about what Parthenia just said, but Rogan is anxious and jumping all over the place. Did he used to be a gymnast before this spider was installed on his skull?

“Call the keystone again, Jaclyn.” He says, mid-somersault. “And let’s find Warda!”

He runs out of the room. I pocket the spider device and chase after the king, who’s now very adept —and quick— on his feet. When I look behind me I don’t see Parthenia until we’re out in the courtyard. She comes flying through an archway!

“Where did you get those?!” I shout up at her. She’s hovering nearby with huge mechanical and leather wings.

“From that tower room!” Parthenia yells back down to me. “There’s Warda!”

“Where?” Rogan whips round in his boots, feet steady on the paved stones. He shifts back and forth, looking round and round, and not falling over at all.

“There!” Parthenia swoops low, picks up Rogan under his arms, almost drops him (probably because he’s heavy) and takes off into the air on her own again.

It was a ten foot drop, but Rogan landed with ease and I’m majorly impressed.

“I’ll get her!” Parthenia flaps away.

“Wow!” I watch her go, racing over to Rogan. “I gotta get me some of those wings!”

“She’s not well trained!” The king looks worried.

We both watch as Parthenia bumps up and down in the air, chasing a stream-lined Warda who escapes her pursuer with ease.

How crazy is it that in this world a cat can fly better than a human? Not that either creature has natural wings like birds. Everything is crazy around here.

There’s a flash of lightning, but this time I’m out in the open so I can see the glow linger.

“What was that?”

“They’ve passed beyond the shome.” Rogan answers me.

“The shome?”

“Yes, it’s the protective shield surrounding the castle.”

“Oh!” Craning my neck back I look up and all around. There’s a flash of light again as Warda and Parthenia zoom back towards us. “There really is a shield!”

And it’s shaped like an invisible dome around the whole castle island. I saw it flash to life. It wasn’t lightning at all.

“They’re coming back.” Rogan makes a wide-footed stance. Is he getting ready to jump? We’re right near the cliff, that might be a bit risky, even if he has his steady factors all back in order. “Call the keystone now, Jaclyn!”

I do as the king commands. “Hey keystone!” I shout, holding my hand into the air. “Get over here right now!”

Warda nears. She’s good at zooming fast through the air, but Parthenia’s slowness is a benefit. The cat tries to fly and doge, but Parthenia is so far behind, the girl can give chase in any direction Warda tries to go.

When the flying cat is near enough, I can see the keystone in her mouth, right before it pops free.

But it doesn’t fall into the ocean below, it shoots into my hand and I close my fingers quickly over my palm to make a tight fist.

“Ha!” I exclaim. “Got it.”

Rogan choses that exact moment to launch himself forward. He gets quite good air and he could probably do a slam-dunk playing American basketball with the strength of his now-steady legs, but his efforts aren’t high enough for a skilled flying cat.

Warda zooms left, arching away just as Parthenia closes in. She crashes into the jumping Rogan and the two of them tumble and roll across the surface of the stone courtyard.

“Oh no!” I run towards them. “Are you two okay?”

They require a lot of untangling due to mechanical wings being crushed and wrapped round them both. When I finally manage to pull away the wreckage, I find arms wrapped tightly too.

Rogan’s arms are wrapped around Parthenia and the two of them are lying there snogging!

“Seriously?” I step back, feeling more annoyed than awkward. “Do we really have time for that?”

And by that I mean impromptu kissy-face action.

Rogan pulls his lips off of Parthenia’s. “I’m sorry!” He jumps to his feet, extending a hand to help Parthenia up. She takes his hand and he pulls her deftly up. When she’s standing against him, he changes his mind. “No, I’m not sorry.”

And they start smooching all over again.

“Guys!” I throw my hands up into the air. “I don’t know how you prioritize things in this world, but somehow I think even on my Metal Earth abducted parents and city-destroying Shadows take precedence over snog-fests!”

Parthenia giggles and finally pulls away from her king. “He saved my life, Jaclyn!”

“Yeah, okay well you’ve definitely said thanks in a big way. Now can we please figure out how I’m going to get back into that void? I mean the doorshift thing.”

“Well, you can’t fly down on these.” Parthenia kicks the crumpled heap of wings.

“Anyone see where Warda flew off to?” Rogan is no longer distracted by Parthenia’s lips, thankfully. He’s glancing all around, searching the skies for the weirdo talking, hissing, lunatic black cat.

“Jaclyn!” Parthenia screams just as something black flashes in my peripheral.

Warda comes zooming from out of nowhere. There’s a sharp pain in my stomach, and then the flying cat is gone again in a flash.

I look down, surprised to see my hands pressed tight against my tummy, and even more surprising is they’re oozing blood. It’s not my hands that are bleeding though, for when I slowly open them apart, I find the handle of a small black knife sticking straight out of my gut.

“I thought you said the keystone protected me.” I look at Rogan right before I fall to the ground, dead.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“Being dead is weird.”

“You’re not dead.” A low grumble of a voice replies to me.

“I’m not?”

“No, but you could be if it were my will.”

“It could?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“Because.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Because I figured out a way to stab you, that’s why!”

Now the voice is shrill, even for a masculine one.

Sitting up, I open my eyes. I think. I’m not sure because it’s so dark I can’t see anything.

“Where am I?” I might not be dead after all.

“That is for me to know and for you to—"

“To find out?”

“No. Be quiet. I was going to say that is for you to… never know.”

“Liar.”

“What! How dare you?”

“You were going to say what I said you were going to say, but then you made up some random shit so that I’d think you were going to say something original, when everyone knows how the saying goes.”

I get to my feet, wobbly because it’s hard to balance when you can’t see. “The saying tells that I’m supposed to figure out what you know, and I have done.”

“You have?” The deep voice sounds flummoxed.

“Yes. I’m inside the Shadow.”

Silence.

There’s no reply for ages and now I’m getting bored.

“I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Yes. Fine.” The voice mumbles.

“What was that?”

“Yes!” It now booms. “I am the shadow and you are privileged to be in communication with me in your primitive spoken humanoid language!”

Primitive, eh? Well, I did figure out where I was all by myself, so how primitive can I be?

“So Warda is the Shadow.”

“Ha!”

Apparently the Shadow can laugh, because it just barked one.

“You foolish human. Warda was but my tool. She stabbed you on my command!”

“I knew it.”

“No you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did. I just said you were Warda to throw you off.”

Silence again.

I really did think Warda was the Shadow, but I’m not going to admit that to it.

“Well if you know everything.” The dark voice speaks again finally. “Then I don’t need to tell you what happens next.”

Hmmm. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so sure of myself. “You can tell me if you want to, seeing as how you seem to enjoy the sound of your own voice.”

“Aha!” It exclaims and I feel a boom of strange emotion hit my chest.

I take a step back, hand over heart. “Aha what?”

“This isn’t my voice, it is but another tool I took from a predecessor of yours, Keystone.”

Aha indeed. Now we’re getting somewhere. It just called me the Keystone. With a capital K, like a name. I wonder how much this strange entity really knows. It doesn’t know that I don’t know what’s going on. Maybe we’re both a bit confused.

Shaking my head to clear my thoughts, I concentrate on the strange feeling in my chest.

“You are absorbing my essence more quickly than the others, Keystone.”

“Right… umm… your essence.”

“For lack of a better word, yes.”

Its essence? What the hell is that? Is that what’s happening to my chest? Oh!

Yes, that’s definitely the feeling I’m getting here. And it’s spreading.

Through my veins I feel strength, as though some sort of power being pumped by my heart through my body.

Then come the voices. I know these voices, even though I’ve never met the people they belong to. They whisper to me about the power I’m feeling. About my fate, my destiny. The strength that is now mine, if I overcome the Shadow.

“No.” I gasp aloud.

“No?” the Shadow replies, but I can barely hear it amidst all the other chatter inside my mind.

“What’s happening!” I cry out now.

“You don’t know!” The Shadow again.

And still the voices. Telling me things of Keystone’s past. Showing my mind how to entrap the Shadow, to use it for ultimate gain. To stop it spreading its rage.

“I knew you didn’t know.” The Shadow talks not unlike a young child.

It doesn’t know either.

“Stop.” I scream aloud and this breaks into the crowded noise, cutting off the chatter completely.

I’m in my own mind again, and what’s more is I can actually see.

“Where am I?”

“In the tower room, of course.”

Yes. The Shadow is right. I am in the tower room, with all its gadgets and gizmos and machinery. And with its only occupant in solid form.

Myself.

I can see my body lying on the once overturned red velvet and gold gilt sofa seat.

“How is this happening?”

“It’s because of the dagger in your belly.” The voice of the Shadow speaks into my mind. It’s as though I’m seeing my body lying there through a dark haze. “Quite clever, if I do say so myself.”

What is up with this strange entity known as the Shadow? It’s almost teen-like in its taunting.

It goes on in this vein… “And now it’s your turn, Keystone. How will you win the game? I think I’ve got you beat this generation.”

Game? Generation? What is this entity on about? The whispers. The voices. What were they trying to tell me?

“This is all a game?”

Oops.

I forgot I was supposed to be pretending I knew what’s going on.

A sound like deep rumbling laughter fills the darkened surroundings.

“You do not know, do you Keystone?” The Shadow has cottoned onto me.

That feeling of warmth in my chest from before, now sinks into my stomach as pain. I look down at myself on the sofa and I watch as my eyes fly open.

I’m aware of looking down at myself at the same time as staring up at my disembodied essence as well, right before I’m sucked down and down and down.

My consciousness is once again joined with my physical body.

I can still hear the voice of the Shadow though, and it whispers straight into my mind…

“I win, JACLYN.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“Jaclyn!”

Parthenia comes racing into the room, followed by Rogan and a strange man I somewhat recognize.

“I know you!” Well sitting up —like I just tried to do— was a huge mistake. My gut is agony because I forgot there’s a black blade sticking into it. “Ouch!”

I lie back down.

“Something crazy has happened, Jaclyn!” Parthenia shouts when she reaches me.

“Ohhhhhh.” I moan in horrific pain. “Yes something crazy happened! I totally got stabbed!”

“No not that.” Parthenia dismisses my fatal stab wound as though it’s noting more than a minor scrape. “The doorshift has opened!”

I shut my eyes in agony. “So that’s why he’s here?”

“Yes!” I hear Parthenia yell again. “Mr Tivnys is here to save you, Jaclyn!”

Say what?

My eyes fly open just in time to see something that takes the pain away for just a moment.

“Mum! Dad!” I cry out loud. “Is it really you?”

“Jac!” Both my parents shout my name in unison, running straight through the doorway into the tower room.

“The Shadow!” I sit up again just as Mr Tivnys blocks their way.

“Wait one moment!” He turns and kneels by my side.

“Get away from me.” I hiss, wincing as the blade shifts painfully inside my stomach. “You tied me up!”

Yes. This is that guy. I totally remember him from the castle in my world. He tied me to a chair after zapping me with his stupid staff thingy, the very thingy he’s aiming at me now!

“Just hold still and I will extricate the Shadow from within you, Jaclyn.”

He what now?

I look round his shoulder to my parents who are being held at bay by Rogan.

Zap!

The Mr Tivnys guy catches me off guard, zinging me in the stomach with his glowy-ended stick.

I gasp in surprise as the man stands and adjusts his tuxedo tie, spinning his staff round and planting the end onto the floor with a bang.

“No thanks necessary.” He waves a white-gloved hand and departs through the open doors, walking right past my gob-smacked parents.

“Jac!” They both shout again and now Rogan lets them come to me.

“I… I…” My voice shudders. The dagger that was in my belly is now in my hand, and there’s no hole in my stomach to prove it was ever stabbed in there!

“This is all your father’s fault!” Mum accuses Dad of I-don’t-know-what.

“It’s true, Jac!” Dad wails as they both hug me awkwardly on the sofa. “If only I’d listened to your mother!”

This is nothing new. Dad never listens to Mum, and eventually regrets it. But in this case I’m at a loss for how he can be at fault for getting randomly kidnapped by spider women!

“What are you guys on about?” Sitting up, I push my parents away slightly. “I’m just glad you’re both safe!”

“For now.”

Heads turn toward the speaker, and it’s Mr Tivnys. One fist on his hip, the other on his staff, he nods toward the big window.

“The exiled have been let loose.”

“The exiled?” I’m the only one with a dumbfounded look on her face. Everyone else in the room gasps in surprise. Even my mother and father!

“They’re out there?” Dad leaps to his feet.

“All of them from Metal Earth?” Mum stands too and before I know what’s happening the two of them are gearing-up.

“Mum! Dad!” I shout at them, standing as well. I’m perfectly fine now it seems, ever since this Mr Tivnys zapped me. “What are you doing?”

What it looks like they’re doing is prepping for battle.

Mum has donned a corset vest thingy round her waist. It’s covered in tiny pockets, cogs, and gadgets and gizmos galore. The same goes for everything Dad’s now wearing; a tight strap around his shoulder to hip.

I’m so busy gawping at them I don’t notice Rogan and Parthenia are doing the same, until Parthenia throws a corset at me.

“Oof!” Escapes my lips as I catch the clunky thing, a strap whipping my cheekbone just under my eye in the process. “Am I supposed to put this on?”

“Yes, Jaclyn. Hurry!” Parthenia runs back toward me. “Just put it around your middle and the corset will do the rest.

The rest of what?

“But Degan’s jacket is huge!”

“Just put it on!”

“Okay!”

Parthenia runs off again into the maze of shelves and paraphernalia. My parents still haven’t answered my questions, they’re too busy comparing knives and strange looking weapons with Rogan.

It’s as though they know him. It’s as though my parents know their way around here awfully well.

The only person who isn’t doing anything, other than the gawping me, is Mr Tivnys. He’s still standing like a poser with his staff, tall black top hat perched directly on top of his head. He moves suddenly, giving his wacky mustache a twirl.

I guess there’s nothing else for it. I’m going to have to put this damned corset on. But as soon as everyone’s kitted out, for whatever reason, I will have my answers!

And so, flapping the thick leather and copper corset open, I can see it has two shoulder straps. I hook my arms into them and shrug the whole thing on my back.

Then, something amazing happens.

The corset starts to do itself up, right under my nipples. It doesn’t quite reach all the way over my boobs, but neither does it stop stitching itself under my breasts either. And what’s even more crazy is the corset is somehow shrinking Degan’s black leather jacket.

In less than a few seconds I’m standing here wearing a surprisingly comfortable corset. It basically makes my whole upper body look encased in a perfectly fitting leather jacket. Okay so it’s covered in pockets, but I’ll find out what all the gears and cogs are for later. Right now someone has explaining to do. And that someone is pretty much everyone in this strange room.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Everyone’s kitted out. For what? I have no idea. But I’m pretty sure it’s bad, because there are weapons being worn.

At Parthenia’s (rather forceful) request, I swapped my black work trousers for a pair of brown leather leggings. She also foisted black boots onto my legs, but if I’m being honest watching them lace themselves up to my knees was pretty cool.

I’ve got fingerless leather gloves on my hands, and when I turn my right fist round and round I can still see the gleam of sliver at the seam of my wrist.

“Check you out!” Parthenia demands I stand in front of a tall gilt-framed mirror. “Watch this!”

She plonks a bowler hat onto my mess of tangled blonde hair. But this is no ordinary hat. It’s covered in gleaming brass cogs and pretty feathers.

I watch in amazement as the hat does my hair! It pulls it half up, like Parthenia’s, into gleaming golden curls!

“Wow!”

“Right?” Parthenia bumps my hip with hers. “Now let’s go kick some criminal yatch!”

“Yatch?”

“Oh sorry. I think your Metal Earth word for it is ASS.”

Shaking my head at that, I will have to ask how Parthenia knows so much about my Earth, when I only just found out her Earth even exists!

I turn round and I’m at least glad to see everyone’s finished donning equipment.

Mum looks amazing. Her long blonde hair’s been done up under a small metal fascinator. At least, I assume it was the fancy hat that did her hair all by its powerful self.

She’s ripped the lower half of her sweater-dress right off down the front, so it flaps behind her over leather leggings and durable looking boots.

Mum is arguing with Dad over something. I go to them, wondering how they’re both so clued-in on the dress code in this world.

Dad has on a tweed suit like Rogan. Though the young king guy has a lot more metal on his.

“I won’t allow it.” Mum is grumbling at Dad and when I reach them I see why.

“But, darling.” Dad wines. “They’re from Metal Earth. They’re vintage!”

“Not here they’re not.” Mum is upset and I can see why.

Dad is holding a pair of guns.

I don’t know what to be curious about more; the fact that my parents are right as rain in this strange world, or that my father seems to know a lot about the weapons he’s holding.

They’re kind of pretty, if I’m being honest. One of the guns is in the holster thingy. But Dad is holding the other one like a precious jewel, or something. Cradled in his hand it has an elaborately carved ivory handle.

“Wait a sec…” My voice trails off as I take the gun from my dear old dad, just like that.

“Pardon me madam.” Mum looks incredulous. She hates guns. Hates all the violence caused by horrible people with guns in America that she reads about on Facebook and Twitter.

“Hang on, Mum look.”

Chewing off the snap of my right glove, I pull it off my hand with my teeth. I put the gun handle next to it.

“Well would you look at that.” Parthenia is suddenly looking over my shoulder. “The symbols match.”

It’s true. Some of the symbols carved into the handle of the gun I’m holding, look like the silver symbols embedded in my skin, on the back of my hand.

A flash of light.

“Whoa!” I drop the gun because it was my hand that flashed.

I look down to find the symbols on the gun are lit up golden too. And when the gun leaps back up into my hand of its own accord, I really lose the plot!

“What the?”

I’m holding the gun. I drop it. It springs back up into my hand.

No one’s saying anything about this craziness that’s happening to me. No one has said anything about anything.

When the gun leaps up into my hand again, I hold it steady, aimed at Mr Tivnys.

“Right.” I exclaim in frustration. “Mum, Dad, if you don’t tell me what is going on right now, I’m going to shoot that guy.”

“Don’t be silly, Jac—"

My mother doesn’t get to finish her next sentence because I don’t know why I did it, but I did indeed just shoot the top-hat-wearing man, right between the eyes.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“Jaclyn!” Mum grabs the gun out of my hand.

I’m surprised as she is about what I just did. I’m also surprised when my mother’s hand is pulled sharply and the gun flies back into my grip!

“It was the Keystones, wasn’t it Jaclyn?”

Mr Tivnys just asked me that. He’s not dead. I did shoot him between the eyes, but it was the annoying painted on eyes beneath the goggles on his top-hat.

He’s now casually dusting of his wounded hat as though it’s no big deal that I would have killed him, if my aim had been just a few inches lower.

“The voices?” Mr Tivnys casually plops his hat back onto his head. There’s a hole in it now, and the goggles fell off after being shot apart by the bullet. “The descended powers.”

How did he know?

It’s true.

I did hear the voices in my head, as soon as I held the gun for the first time.

They were the same voices I’d heard when I was inside the Shadow.

Voices of power. Voices telling me of great power.

Power that I could yield from the Shadow.

“You are from here, aren’t you Mum and Dad?” That is obvious to me now. How else could they know their way around the place so well?

They both nod in confirmation. “I’m sorry we didn’t tell you, Jac.” Dad says. “But that’s no reason to shoot someone.”

“I didn’t.” I’m confused, so I rub my forehead. “It’s like Mr Tivnys said, it was the Keystones.”

He nods. Everyone is staring at me.

“The Keystones?” Mum looks worried. She’s still staring at the gun in my hand. “I should have been more adamant with your father, Jac. I wanted to tell you about your true birth place.”

“It’s true, your mother did.”

Still, no one moves. They don’t trust me with this weapon, and to be honest I don’t trust myself. I’m so confused; by the voices in my head, by communication with the Shadow, what my parents are saying about being born on this otherworldly Earth, to the one I thought I was from.

“So I’m from here?”

Mum and Dad nod their heads yes in unison.

“Is that why that Degan guy found me and burned the key into my hand?” My glove is off. I hold up my right hand.

Mr Tivnys steps forward, looking braver than the rest. “Degan is a fugitive of this world. He was sent to Metal Earth with the other criminals of this realm with his familiar; Crizma.”

Fugitive? Familiar?

Curiouser and curiouser this whole situation gets.

Dad comes close and puts a hand on my shoulder. “Your mother and I are watchers, because basically not a lot of people want the job. So they let us go over to Metal Earth when you were a baby. We work on lesser problems with Mr Tivnys when prisoners from this realm kick up a fuss.”

“But how do you travel between different Earths? I thought only the keystone could open the doors in that void in the cliff.” I question dear old Dad. “And I thought the Shadow was normally trapped inside the… the doorshift thingy.”

Wait just one second. I’ve just thought of something.

“So you send the criminals of this Earth to ours? Or to Metal Earth, or whatever?”

Everyone, but me, nods their heads yes in confirmation of my question.

“Well that’s awful.”

“It has to do with the realm of hell, Jac.” Mum comes toward me too, but she’s still got her eye on the gun in my hand. “There’s already a gateway deep within Metal Earth that leads to the realm of punishment for evil souls.”

“Oh what.” I balk at this latest craziness. “So you figure since our Earth is already filled with evil, you can go ahead and add more criminals to it any time you like?”

“Well there is an entire court system and procedures in place—"

I cut Mr Tivnys off with a wave of my gun-free hand. I don’t know why I don’t like the guy, but he irritates the voices in my head.

“I don’t care.” Or do I? I don’t know. I’m so out of sorts right now.

“So Degan is a criminal?”

Mr Tivnys nods his head. “I was rehabilitating him back into society at North Wyche castle when he took the key.”

Wait. What? “North Wyche castle? That place is in ruins.”

“It was glamoured to appear that way, Jac.” Mum says. “Your father and I went to meet with Mr Tivnys about Degan, that night.”

I’m guessing she means the night the key was burnt into my hand by the very person they’re talking about.

“Why did he have this key though?” I look at my palm. “I thought it was passed down through generations of keystone royalty.”

“Degan is my brother.” Rogan steps away from the tall window. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a military to organize and round up the criminals.”

And with that bombshell of a revelation he walks out of the room, Parthenia in tow. The girl gives me a two-finger salute off her brow that somehow brings me back to my senses a bit.

She’s nice. She makes me smile. Smiling is good. It grounds me with the realization that sometimes in life I’ve felt happy, rather than bombarded by craziness like I have been just these past few days!

“Degan had the key because he’s supposed to be the Keystone. But that means…"

I let my verbal thoughts trail off, but Mum finishes my sentence. “Degan is Rogan’s brother.”

Well, I guess I couldn’t have known that. I couldn’t have known any of this, and now I do.

“Is that why you’re all geared up like some kind of guard squad?”

I’m feeling much more calm now. The voices of previous Keystones have hushed inside my mind.

“Yes, Jaclyn.” Dad gives me a crooked smile. “And as you’re the Keystone now, we will need your help.”

I guess I’ve no choice. “The Shadow caused all this?”

Mum nods her head. “Over centuries past when the Shadow has been released from the doorshift, we’ve had to explore other worlds, to best discover how to defeat it.”

“And the Shadow is released every time a new Keystone must be chosen.” I’m really getting the hang of figuring things out now, inside my mind.

This time it’s Dad who nods. “The key didn’t accept Degan at all, when his mother —the previous Keystone— died. It knew he was pure evil.”

“Really?” Mum looks questioningly at Dad. “Pure evil?”

“Well what else do you call someone who willingly let the Shadow loose for so long?”

Wait. What?

My concentration is waning. When did I set the gun down onto the sofa? Well, if it’s not in either of my hands, that’s everyone less worried that I’ll shoot someone’s hat off.

“Where’s Mr Tivnys?” I look round and round.

“He’s gone to fight the good fight, Jac.” Dad pats my shoulder again. He’s doing his best trying to comfort me, I know he is, but this whole situation is just diabolical and I think it’s important for me to understand.

“All this fighting though.” I start to pace the floor, really thinking now, putting two and two together inside my mind. “The key, the Shadow, the criminals, the void… errm doorshift, or whatever…”

Again, my voice trails off when I realize something. I stop pacing and face my parents. “When that flying submarine thing—“

“The coastship.” Dad explains.

“Yes, okay.” I acknowledge his interruption quickly. “When the coastship brought me up from the side of the cliff, what were all those people doing?”

“The military ships bring people in from beyond the castle shield, Jac.” Mum explains. “They come back into their right minds once away from the influence of the Shadow.”

I go to the big window and look out at the lay of the land. It’s blocked by stacked shelves, but without thinking, I climb to the top of a great big machine and perch there easily, looking out.

“So there’s a big invisible shield over the castle.” I can see out towards the city. I watch other big ships flying through the air. They must be picking up people out there beyond the castle.

“The shield protects those inside from the Shadow influencing their emotions of rage.” Dad shouts up to me, and I hear Mum whisper to him.

“Did you see how quickly she got up there?”

I assume she’s talking about me, and I realize she’s right. How did I climb up here so easily? Is this the strange power the Keystone voices keep suggesting to me?

Whatever the case, I don’t have time to ponder any new ninja jumping capabilities I might well possess. I’m starting to figure this Shadow thing out, and I’m not going out there until I’m absolutely sure I’m on the right track with what I’m thinking.

“That’s why there’s fighting beyond the castle shield?” I shout down to Mum and Dad. “The Shadow is doing that to the people?”

I’m guessing that’s why there’s so much disaster in the city beyond. Buildings bombed out, smoke rising into the air. I dread to think about the actual fighting that’s going on down on the ground, but if I’m the Keystone then I guess I will see it for myself, and soon.

There’s something wrong about the whole thing though.

Jumping down quick from my perch, I go to my parents. “Why did Degan give me the key?” I show them the burn in my palm. I look at the silvery swirls and symbols on the back of my hand. The split in my wrist where I know I’m capable of removing my own hand. “And is this how every Keystone person in the past has opened the doors in the void?”

Both Mum and Dad shake their heads no, but only Dad answers me. “Every time the Shadow escapes the Keystone goes through their own different trials to try and trap it inside the doorshift again.”

Something crashes in the outer hallway, causing all three of us to jump.

“I will check things out.” Dad scarpers before Mum can protest.

She looks anxious. “We really should get out there and help, but I know we owe you an explanation Jac, I’m so sorry we didn’t tell you sooner.”

Looking at my Mum I have every sympathy for her, more than she even knows, because I already know more that she does now, after communicating with the Shadow.

“It’s okay, Mum.” I give her a small grin. It’s the best I can do right now to reassure her I’m not angry, or in any way about to go slightly crazy again and pick up that gun to shoot anyone. “I’m ready to help. Let’s go catch some bad-guys.”

“Yes! Let’s!” Mum claps her hand like an excited child and my fears are confirmed.

This is all the Shadow’s doing. The people of this Earth are being mind-controlled, but it’s not only the people outside the supposed castle shield.

Neither my father or my mother answered me when I asked why Degan burned the key into my hand. Why he chose me at North Wyche castle. It’s as though they didn’t hear my question at all.

And I think I know why. I think I know why Degan chose me, and I think I know why my parents will never be able to answer all of my questions, at least not entirely.

The Shadow is playing its game and it’s been doing so since it first left that void all those centuries ago.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

There’s nothing else I can say to my mother, and there’s really nothing I can ask her either. I know I’m new to this strange world, even though I was apparently born here, but maybe that’s the thing. Maybe that’s why I can see things in a way no one else here can.

Whatever the case, I’ve made up my mind.

“Let’s go then.” I tell my mother point blank. And talking of shooting positions, as she heads through the double doors, I grab the pistol off the sofa and shove it into one of many bulging pockets on the leg of my leather trousers.

Mum walks me down vast corridors until finally we come out into the main castle courtyard.

I can see Rogan barking instructions to groups of military looking people. I spot Parthenia and go towards her, but not before making my excuses with Mum.

“I’m just going to get some… ummm… battle tips from Parthenia.”

“Oh?” Mum tips her head. “Is she battle trained?”

All I can do is nod my head in reply, because I fear if I say something, I’ll say too much and belay the fact that I have no idea if Parthenia is battle trained or not. Apparently though, using the word battle was the correct term.

How long have these people been at war with the Shadow? For centuries, yes. So I’m in no position to voice my theories that the fighting is all down to the games the Shadow is playing.

And I definitely don’t want to begin to ask myself what kind of entity has the time for such games, on an eternal basis. That kind of stuff will do any girl’s head in. Unless she’s someone who likes existential and metaphysical philosophy. Which I definitely do not. Contemplating forever makes my mind implode.

Mum nods once and I’m off and running. I’m making a beeline for Parthenia, which means running around groups of lined up military personnel. There’s a gap in the crowd though, so I sprint faster.

Bang!

I crash into an invisible wall.

“What the?”

Placing my hands in front of me I look like a mime as I move my fingers over the transparent surface like a see-through wall.

“A boxnok!” Parthenia spots me and screams. She points downwards and I look, noticing something at my feet.

There’s a little golden box about the size of a juice container for kids, with gears and cogs all over its surface. From the side spills light I can see even during this high noon ish time of day.

Now that I’m no longer in shock, I can see this soft light all around me. The wall isn’t completely see-through, it’s sort of opaque with a golden glow.

It’s not a wall either, unless you consider the fact there are four walls, all around me. I’m trapped inside a nearly invisible box and when I realize this I strike the wall with my fist.

The surface pools like ripples of circular light that spread outwards before vanishing.

Chaos erupts suddenly all around. People are backing away in droves from my opaque prison. Except for my parents, Mr Tivnys, Rogan, and Parthenia. They are all booking it towards me.

Bang!

They’re too late, to rescue me that is, if they were going to.

Above our collective heads a crack has appeared in the sky.

“The shield has been breached!” Rogan cries out, and no sooner than he does, light streaks downwards, from the crack.

It hits the paved stones nearby and a familiar toothy face appears, just as the explosion of light goes out.

“Raknah.” Mr Tivnys grumbles her name low, but his voice booms out loudly anyway.

It is her. The smiley, toothy woman. The one who kidnapped my parents.

She’s wearing black leather from neck to wrists to feet. Her get-up is corseted with tight black leggings, but she’s also got a long black bustle trailing behind, down to her ankles.

The toothy woman is grinning from ear to ear as she bends and picks up the little box. “Stop, or I will close in the walls.”

Everyone who was nearing me, now halts in their tracks.

“Stay back!” Rogan shouts at a group of soldiers who look weaponized to the hilt, and they’re all aiming their huge —and odd looking— guns at Raknah.

I can see at the platform a wave of passengers exiting a flying submarine. They must be people who’ve been rescued from the city under the Shadow, but they don’t know they haven’t escaped anything.

What did Raknah mean by close in the walls anyway?

“No!” Dad cries out as Mum looks on in horror.

I’ve just discovered what Raknah meant, because she’s turned a dial on box in her hand, and the mostly invisible walls around me are closing in!

“Get that box from her!” I shout the only thing that comes to mind.

No one needs telling twice. Everyone who’s trying to help me closes in towards Raknah, ad as they do the woman splits in half.

Yes, this is weird. She’s undergoing some sort of mitosis in rapid succession.

Before anyone can get to her, she’s sprouted long black spider legs, now towering over everyone.

She looks down at me from above the four opaque wall surrounding me. “Endow the key upon me, Jaclyn.” The spider woman puts her arm down through the top of the invisible box.

So that’s how I could hear everyone! There’s no top on this box!

And so I spring into action, doing just that. I jump as high and hard as I can, springing out of the box with ease.

“Nooooooo!” Raknah screams below me as I arc over her head, doing a flip in the air in the process. I land on my feet seemingly miles away, but not really. I’m near the platform where people continue to disembark from the flying submarines that look like squids opening at the mouth.

“Whoa.” Escapes my lips in amazement.

“Wow!” A girl, about the age of nine, wearing a corseted pant-suit and her rainbow color curls up in a fluffy bun, shrieks and looks at me with bulging eyes. “You’re the Keystone! You’re going to save us all!”

She holds up her hand and I’m pleased to know some traditions from the Earth I grew up in, have transferred here.

I high-five her before turning round…

… and coming face to face with nothing but teeth.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Time seems to slow down. Chaos all around. Raknah’s eyes flick right and I hear the young girl scream. But soon enough her screams are cut off.

There’s web streaming out of Raknah’s hands, cocooning the girl and suffocating her completely.

There’s also something else streaming out from behind, and to the sides of Raknah.

Someones.

More of her.

The naked spider women.

I recall in the blink of an eye that the spider women were duplicates of Raknah, and they are multiplying rapidly. Spreading out amongst the crowd and the soldiers. Spraying their sticky webs everywhere. Swathing people in silk cocoons.

There’s nothing I can do. I’m being shot at by web from many angles. Before I can blink again my eyes are glued shut.

I can’t breathe! I’m going to die!

Suddenly, a sound stranger than my own suffering erupts in my ears. It’s like wind through leafy tree branches times one-hundred decibels volume.

My whole body heats up and when I can finally open my eyes I see glowing ash sparkling like golden blurs of tiny lights, before disappearing on the wind.

I’m free! And I can see why.

Many soldiers are using their big complicated copper guns to shoot at the web’s of the spider women. Cocoons everywhere are basically being burnt to cinders before evaporating entirely, leaving a perfectly safe human alive and well and free.

Sort of.

Free from the swaths, but not free from battle.

I do the only thing I can. I join in the fight.

One minute I’m trying to protect a child and get them to safety. The next I’m climbing the tall legs of a spider woman, only to reach her face and punch it as hard as I can.

I don’t even have time to think about how strange this all is. I’ve never laid an angry hand on anyone all my life, and now here I am in a major punch-up. Kicking too. Doing fight moves I’ve never trained for, ever.

I’m taking hits too now, but I don’t feel it much. I’m guessing that’s whatever protection the keystone provides. But at what cost? Especially if I’m right and the Shadow is controlling everything anyway.

Bang.

I’m hit in the jaw by a spider woman’s leg. I barely feel it as a slight shove though.

Swoosh!

Seven more spider legs sweep below mine and I lose my footing. I fall to the ground, but land steady enough, on knee bent to the ground.

Recovering quickly I spin around at the same time as standing tall. My fist flies out again and makes immediate contact with Raknah’s huge teeth.

“Ow!” She howls in pain and actually backs away, holding her face.

Out the corner of my eye I notice something. It was only a blip, but I saw it. When I’d punched Raknah her sisters faltered. All of them. All at once. Their physical substance flickered, and their fighting moved faltered.

Which means whoever’s now shooting at, or combating hand-to-hand with the spider women, all have a split-second advantage while Raknah and her sisters recover.

The fight is now favoring the side of good, rather than icky spidery evilness.

It makes me feel like I’m in a movie scene for a second. And then I realize why. I remember that this is even more proof the Shadow is controlling these people like a game. Its infecting my thoughts too. Viewing all of this as good versus evil; that’s definitely mind-games going on here.

Whatever the case I’ll have to go with my gut instinct. I can’t just stop fighting, and I’m going to have to use what I know.

Advancing, I go for the only weakness I just witnessed in Raknah. I aim for her mouth and that stupid grin of hers. I’m not fast enough though, and she fires off a stream of web at me. Spider silk is just about to smother my face when things take a surprising turn.

The sky is flashing. The castle shield is useless. It’s being penetrated straight through the dome with bursts of light as flying vehicles of all shapes and sizes pour in and join the fight.

Unfortunately, I don’t think they’re fighting against Raknah. The newcomers have all started attacking people on the ground and soldiers too!

My face is finally smothered in web and the slightest jolt from outside my cocoon sends me to the ground.

I can barely hear what’s happening all around. I can’t move. I’m at a loss for what to do. If only I hadn’t pocketed the keystone. If I had that pebble in my palm I could at least try to take off my own hand and scratch at the web with the end of the key, or something.

Wow. I must be suffocating and losing oxygen to my brain fast — if I think that lame idea would help me in the slightest.

Suddenly, a feeling of weightlessness tingles my body and strangles my gut. I’ve been lifted into the air and I don’t know if it’s friend or foe who has hold of me!

Any second now I could be let go, falling to my doom. Even if the keystone protects me, I doubt I’d survive a significantly high fall onto hard stones, or worse, onto the jagged rocks below the cliff edge.

My blinded world spins, but then I feel something press the bottoms of my exposed booted feet.

I’ve been stood upright! I’m standing and holding ground right when a sound like shredded tearing splices web straight down the middle. I burst from the cocoon, sucking in air like I’ve been drowning under water.

When I see the face of the person who just released me from my prison of web, my eyes go wide with wonder.

I’d better be right about my theories and assumptions in thinking the Shadow is in control of everyone but two people in this world. Because the only other person I think is in control of his own faculties is standing in front of me right now, and that person is Degan.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“You.” I clamor backwards as far as I dare go, because I’m up on the roof of a castle tower and I don’t have to wonder how Degan got us up here.

He’s wearing a pair of mechanical wings.

“I know what you’ve done!”

He moves toward me. His black silk shirt is open all the way down the front, so his chest is exposed. If it weren’t for the straps of the wings around his shoulders, his shirt would fly off completely in the wind up here.

“Oh good.” Degan drops the gun he was aiming at me. I presume it’s the same weapon that zapped open my cocoon prison just a second ago. “Then I don’t need to explain myself.”

“Wait. What?” I’m flabbergasted. “Yes you do! You kidnapped my parents on purpose!”

“I did, yes.” He nods his head, frustratingly casual, considering the circumstances.

“So you admit it!”

“I did what I had to, Jaclyn.”

“Yeah!” I jab an angry finger towards him. “And I know why!”

“So you keep saying. Do tell.”

Fine! I will tell him!

And that’s just what I do. “You’re working for the Shadow!”

He snorts.

His answer to my accusation is to snort.

“So you don’t actually know what you’re talking about.”

“What?”

“I’m not working for the Shadow, Jaclyn. I’m the only person in this world who knows how to stop it.”

What.

Doubt springs up fast in my mind right now, because I was contemplating this outcome. I know Degan knows things. Things that I know. But let’s just see if he really knows what I know.

Squinting my eyes at him to maybe get a better read on his reactions with my serious inquisitor face, I ask him point blank. “If you’re not lying then what does the Shadow do.”

“Everything.”

I gasp aloud and my hand involuntarily slams over my mouth.

That was the correct answer. I shouldn’t get too excited though. Maybe this guy just thinks he knows what I want him to say.

“What do you mean by EVERYTHING?” I question him further, even though I know I’m short on time. There’s a battle going on below and all around. People are in danger and if I don’t get down from here soon, there won’t be much left I can help with.

Degan looks around and down too, with a worried look on his face. “I mean the people of this world won’t survive this game. The Shadow has played them one too many times over the centuries.”

Okay, that’s it. We are definitely on the same page now. I thought he was going to tell me about how the Shadow controls everyone’s anger, but he’s just told me what I thought only I knew; that the Shadow is in control of a lot more.

I really hope my gut feeling is on the right track, because if I’m wrong in trusting Degan, it’s not only me who’s screwed, but this entire realm is going to be in big trouble too.

Degan’s face is all seriousness. “I was cast out as a criminal when I took the key the first time. I was sent to your world and I retrieved it.”

“Is that when you burnt it into my hand?” I hold up my palm.

He nods his head. “The keystone showed me to you, Jaclyn.”

“Why?”

“Because it is you.”

Oh no. What’s he saying? Was I wrong assuming we’re on the same wave-length? Does he really know what the Shadow is up to?

“I’m not the next Keystone! I don’t want the job I’m afraid!” I shout at Degan, but he looks at me with what appears to be pity in his eyes.

“You are not the next Keystone, Jaclyn.” He’s moving towards me. His light brown eyes sparkle with yellow amber in the sun. His black shirt flaps open wider in the breeze and the wings on his back threaten to take him up into the air. “You are the first Keystone. You are all the Keystones.”

Why does he keep saying that? And why am I listening to him?

“You are the Shadow, Jaclyn.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

BOOM.

He’s said it. And what he just said hits my brain like an explosion.

No. This can’t be happening. Why did he say it? How did he know?

Tipping my head to the side, my mind hurts a bit. My eyelids droop, jaw goes slack. Drool escapes and I feel a little gross, but mostly uncaring towards physicality.

Again time slows. The fighting below and all around seems to be moving through water, as though the people want to brawl, but something’s holding them back.

“I… I…” I can’t talk. Don’t know what to say.

I’m the Shadow. How did he know? I just wanted to escape eternity. I just wanted to be a person after so long since last forgetting.

But that’s not right. I don’t know anything about eternity. I don’t remember what I’ve forgotten.

Something is happening to my mind, to my whole body. I’m suddenly hyper aware of my clothes. It’s not a fashion-sense thing. It’s literally the clothes I’m wearing. In particular, Degan’s jacket.

“What is this?” Moving my arms out, I look hard at the leather of the coat. “Oh you are sneaky.”

Did I just say that? Why am I talking this way? I feel like I’m doing and thinking things, but saying words not of my own volition.

Degan looks at me. He’s watching, waiting. And then suddenly he makes a move.

I’m caught off guard by my own confused state of mind. He doesn’t even have to hurt me, he just swiftly moves me from one end of the roof top, to the other.

“It seems you might win this game.” The voice comes out of my mouth again. But I swear I don’t know what I’m saying. “And you’re not even the Keystone.”

A laugh.

I laugh.

I’m laughing and I don’t know what’s funny.

“Clever you!” I go on with great mirth, looking at Degan’s jacket once again. “I never would have guessed my device of defeat this time would be something worn.”

“This is the last game, Shadow.” Degan isn’t laughing, not even smiling. And that makes me frown.

“Oh no.” I don’t like what he’s saying. “I want to play a little longer.”

“You’ve been toying with my people for centuries.” Degan is calm, collected. “We are done.”

He bends down onto one knee and his black shirt tears down the back. Coming away from his form are the mechanical wings, they soar into the air and are now attached to a cat that’s headed straight towards me.

“Warda!” I cry out and I feel like that was my own worried voice.

No wait. It’s Crizma!

Blamo!

The cat crashes into me. His claws digging into the sleeves of my jacket. The mechanical wings envelope me and before I know what’s happening the cat has loosed himself from my personage, slipping to the ground and scuttling away towards Degan.

I’m trapped. Standing at the edge of the tower roof. My whole body is heating up. I feel worried, and the part of me I don’t understand feels ill at ease too.

Opening my mouth, I try to speak, but no words come out.

This isn’t right. The game is ending and I am not in control.

So much heat. Yet I am not burning up completely.

There’s light all around. Where’s it coming from?

Oh. It’s me. Or rather, the wings that are wrapped around me. They’re all lit up. Hotted up.

Brightness, gettting brighter. Pouring out of me, and yet seeping into me as well. Dissolving like melting butter against my skin and soon the wings burn themselves up with heat entirely.

The clothing on my body, the boots on my feet, the hat on my head; they all smolder like embers in a dying fire. It all dissperses up into the air around me like so much smoke.

I’m left standing naked and only covered by silvery golish symbols and swirls upon my skin.

Melting symbols. Swirling into each other. My skin is a kalidascope of molten metal-like spirals, ebbing and flowing away.

The symbols stream off my body, away from my skin and up into the air all around. It forms into a tiny ball of silver before splitting in two like a cell dividing and undergoing mitosis.

One half of the silvery gold forms into the shape of a key. The other into a small stone. They merge back together as simply light that blasts into my chest.

The heat and light moves down and out through my feet.

I am now suffused to the tower roof. I am attached to the castle. I am the castle. I am the ground the entire island extends from. I am the sea. The sky. I am everything and nothing because it’s all going back in.

All of me is being absorbed into the highest point at the top of the tower window. Into the highest stone. Into the very keystone where Eyrga first harnessed my power. The Shadow’s power. The Shadow that’s leaving me now. Leaving the city. Its darkness sucking in through my very consciousness. Everything combining.

Ships in the air crash to the ground. Darkness turns to light. All shadows pull towards the keystone at the top of the tower window. All power flows with it until I am darkness no more.

My thoughts. The shadow I cast over the land. It’s all pulled away from existence like a black cloud filled with rainbow lightning.

All of me. All of everything concentrated and flashing. Being sucked towards the keystone. Into the keystone. A vacuum effect like a reverse tornado until I am nothing more than stone.

I am cold. I am not darkness, or light, or power.

I am nothing.

And I am not the Shadow any more.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

I’m awake. Or waking up at least. And I think I’m human. I always felt like a human being my whole life, but then suddenly I felt like I wasn’t too. Like I was someone else. SomeTHING else entirely.

I blink my eyes slightly open.

“Jaclyn?”

Degan’s voice invades my thoughts. It sounds rough, worn out, like the ground I’m lain upon. The rough surface I can feel with my fingertips.

My fingers. The fingers of my right hand. My right hand that is fully attached to its wrist. A wrist not separated by silver. No silver at all. No swirls of silver or symbols on my skin anywhere. At least, nothing on the back of my hand and arm up to where a swath of black cloth barely covers me.

I’m wide awake now. And naked. I’m completely in the nude.

“Look away!”

No sooner do I say this than I realize Degan’s eyes are shut, he turns around and I quickly get to my feet. Using the two scraps of black fabric that was Degan’s shirt split in two, I tie one half around my upper body like a boobtube, and the other half of fabric like a very short skirt around my waist.

I’m not bothered about my sense of impromptu fashion-sense though, what I am worried about is my parents.

Running towards the edge of the roof, I look down and all around.

“Holy shit!”

I hear Degan turn around behind me.

“Yes, you are Jaclyn.” He’s by my side in an instant.

“Umm…” I look at him weirdly, feeling slightly confused inside my befuddled brain. “I know my own name, thanks!”

Turning away I look back down at the chaos that is the city, and castle courtyard below.

Everything is destruction. Well, it seems that way at first glance, but then I spot my parents in the vast castle courtyard.

They seem lost, like everyone else. Just sort of wandering around, talking amongst themselves.

“The power.” I mumble under my breath. “It’s gone.”

Degan must have heard me, because he by my side. “The Shadow is gone, and so is all of its power.”

“What will your people do?”

He shrugs. “We will survive. It’s better this way. No more mind-games.”

Yes. Mind-games. That was the control the Shadow had over this land and all its inhabitants. “How did you know the Shadow was inside me?” I ask Degan now, turning to face him.

“I’ve known since the night I burnt the key into your hand.”

“Yeah,” I grumble. “Thanks for that.”

“I’m sorry, it was the only way. I barely managed to deny my ancestors whispers of power, when it was my turn to communicate with the Shadow. I knew about its games though, and it had to be stopped.”

Nodding my head, I completely know what Degan is talking about. He’s totally referring to the people who held the keystone in the past. The ones who whispered to me when I was in communication with the Shadow. They spoke of great power and how I could use it to stop the Shadow.

“How did I know not to take the Shadow’s power to try and stop it?”

Degan sort of smiles knowingly. “Because you were not born in this realm of Earths.”

My brow furrows at that. “But my parents said I was.”

“Your parents were under the Shadow’s influence.”

Sheesh. No wonder everyone looks so confused down there. Everyone’s now only fully coming into their right minds with the Shadow gone.

“So its really gone for good?” Looking down, I know I’m standing on the very keystone that now holds the Shadow fully in check.

“I designed its prison over many years.” Degan explains. “When I was given the key the Shadow communicated with me straight away. But I didn’t fall for its games. I didn’t listen to the whispers of my ancestors. I was accused as a criminal for eventually having to steal the key back, after I wouldn’t allow it to be burnt into my flesh. While I was cast out on Metal Earth, I devised the jacket you wore, with a plan that Crizma helped to carry out, at great cost.

“Crizma!” I shout aloud, looking all around the tower rooftop.

I spot him sitting casually on his haunches, licking a paw. Degan and I both move towards the cat.

“His goggles are gone!” He looks like a happy normal cat. “Crizma?”

Nothing.

No answer in English or any language from Degan’s feline friend.

“He can no longer speak.”

I gasp aloud. “He gave up talking to help you?”

“To help us all, Jaclyn. To help our people come out fully from under the Shadow’s games.”

Wow. I rub my head in concern. “I’d like to help too. I can totally bring back electricians from my world. You’ll see! Electricity works really good and—"

“You can’t go back, Jaclyn.”

Wait. What’s he saying?

“The doorshift is forever closed.”

My eyes widen in fear. Is what he’s saying true? Well of course it is! With the Shadow gone, the void full of doors is shut too!

Oh no. I don’t feel too good all of a sudden. My stomach feels fluttery and I’m lightheaded. I wobble slightly and Degan catches me before I fall.

What a wuss-moment I just had. I thought I was strong. Falling into a guy’s arms like this? How silly of me!

I feel so embarrassed, but even more upset.

There’s no going home for me. I’m stuck here on this Earth that I came to be in through a void filled with floating doors.

I feel like I’m displaced, knowing that I can’t go back to my own realm, or whatever. It’s as though this universe is closing in on me.

“Ah crap.”

“Jaclyn.” Degan holds me tighter.

“I think I’m having a panic-attack. Just breathe, Jac. Breathe slowly…”

I take my own advice. It’s what I have to do. When I’ve panicked before and no one has been around, I have to remember to just breathe.

Digging my fingers in a little more firmly into Degan’s arms, I look up at his face. I inhale slowly through my nose, and exhale from my mouth.

He watches me closely, I see his lips open slightly. His tongue wets his lips and suddenly I’m really breathing deep.

“Kiss me!” I say on an inward breath.

Degan’s eyes go wide. “I…”

Pulling him close I plant my lips onto his, and immediately regret doing so.

Wait!

Holding my breath now.

Just go with it, Jac! I shout in my own mind.

A gentle breath escapes my nostrils. Degan presses in further.

It’s working! His kiss is distracting my panic-attack!

I breathe gently. He kisses me warmly. By the time we pull apart I’m fine. I can stand on my own two feet, and the only distraction on my brain is the way his kiss made me feel.

“Thanks.” I mumble almost embarrassedly.

“Are you all right?”

“Umm…” I don’t answer straight away. Though I do think I am indeed all right. I think I might be quite all right being stuck in this realm.

“Yeah, I’m okay.” I finally answer Degan, feeling a bit awkward now.

He pulls me into a skin on skin embrace and I deflate inside, my mind eases just a bit, but then I notice something odd.

“What’s that?” I pull away from Degan, slightly.

“What?” His voice is gravelly and when I look at his lips again, they’re slightly smiling.

“Umm… never mind.” Wow. I’m so easily distracted. I need to get a grip!

Sliding out of his embrace I go towards the edge of the roof. Looking down again at all the confused faces jolts me into action. Especially when I see who my mother is standing next to.

“Raknah.”

Degan is beside me. “She can no longer duplicate. She is no longer part spider.”

I round on him. “You mean the Shadow’s powers gave her spider legs, and the ability to clone herself?”

He nods and takes something from one of the pockets on his trousers.

I gasp in surprise. “You knocked out her teeth!”

Wait no!

“This was her device of power.” Degan smirks and I burst out laughing.

“Power dentures?”

He nods.

I shake my head in crazy wonderment. We leave the tower roof but just as we’re walking down the stairs, I spot something in my peripheral again.

At the place on the roof where the top of they keystone lies, I swear there was a flash of light. When I look back at it now I’m positive I can see it glowing slightly.

“Something the matter, Jaclyn?” Degan looks up at me slightly worried, but also slightly smiley. Maybe he thinks I’m going to freak out again and he’ll get a kiss!

Oh no. I’m really going to have to set him straight about that. Assuming I do want to kiss him again. Which I do. I think. Or rather, I don’t think. I’m not going to think about kissing right now! There’s no time for it. Much more pressing matters to be concerned with. Like for instance, the glowing top of the keystone.

“All right?” Degan asks me again.

“Yes! I’m fine.” I suddenly blurt. I don’t look back again. I just move down the stairs quick as I can.

If the keystone was glowing with some kind of residual power, then it’s not for me to find out. I don’t want to risk anything to do with the Shadow.

As I head down the steps I’m sure of myself. I will be okay in this realm. I will make things work. I know I can do this. And if not I promise to tell Degan about what I saw. Although, if the keystone really was glowing it might mean I’m not trapped in this realm after all.

Acknowledgements

First and foremost, special thanks to Ida at Amygdala Design for the stunning cover of The Keystone.

I’d also like to make a special mention to author Daniel Verastiqui for tips on writing and sharing new works chapter by chapter. You recommend sending my next work in progress via newsletter, however, I think I’m going to put my WIP up on Patreon! I should probably take your advice, but maybe I’ll learn for next time? Got to try new things! lol

Many thanks to first time author Jay Mack for his continued support, and congrats on finally seeing your first book into publication in 2016!

Thanks to my kids for their occasional patience when Mummy looks at them from seemingly miles away, I’m just mind-plotting, it can’t be helped sometimes. Many thanks to my extended British family for their support. The grandparents Jenny and Reg for babysitting, even though it’s enjoyable for all! Thanks to my kids’ dad too for just doing what he’s told, when he can, so that evens that out. Thanks to Cally and Bec for being star aunties as always!

Special thanks to my family in Utah. My mom Cora for always supporting my dreams. My dad Ken who just had heart surgery for the betterment of his health, speedy recovery Dad! My sister Jess for always dropping everything to come to my rescue by phone whenever I need emotional support, which is quite often lately, haha. And thanks to my bros “Abeez” and “Adscrub” ;)

And finally thank you to everyone who read along with me as I wrote The Keystone live on my blog in 2016. Your tips, advice, and encouragement helped me persevere.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Suz Korb is a British/American multi-genre author writing teen adventures, romantic comedy, and science fiction. For all Suz Korb books, and updates on new releases and new genres, visit her website. suzkorb.com