We picked up Ripple and Pip and continued on, flying over the forest. We looked for the giant pug and his rider, but as Gruffy suspected, the Mirror Man had vanished.
My chest felt empty. Gruffy told me that releasing a Grudge caused such emptiness, but I knew it had more to do with Darthorn. I had held a Grudge for only a few minutes, and it had made me so angry that I’d run away from my friends when they were only trying to help. What would it do to poor Darthorn, who might have been holding it much longer?
We flew for the remainder of the day, and as the sun set, Gruffy began looking for a good place to camp.
“How about a nice big clearing with a black tree? A black tree,” Pip squawked.
Gruffy took a playful snap at the toucan, who flapped backward.
It was Squeak who picked the location, a happy little glade with chest-high green ferns and a babbling brook for Ripple that splashed over clusters of rocks and glinted orange in the setting sun. Gruffy landed and we all stretched our legs.
“Tis not my strength, riding griffons,” Ripple admitted, twisting to the left and then to the right, hands on her hips. She then stepped into the water and sighed as she sat down. “Twill be nary a moment and I shall emerge. Prithee, feel not obliged to await my return ere thou dost break bread,” she said, then laid down and let the stream cover her whole body.
We waited for her anyway, and when she emerged, we all sat down and ate more goolaroose, green apples, and nuts. Squeak said that he would take the night watch, or so I gathered. He claimed that he had slept peacefully atop Gruffy’s head during the flight, and was refreshed.
Pip found a branch overhead and tucked his beak under one wing. I looked for a good place to lie down, but Gruffy cleared his throat and bowed his head to me. “Doolivanti, I would have a word with you, if I may.”
“Of course,” I said.
Gruffy walked away from Pip, Ripple, and Squeak, far enough that he could not be overheard. He seemed uncomfortable.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
He cleared his throat. “Doolivanti, I understand that you are powerful. I would never question this. You are a wish maker, but…” He hesitated.
“Gruffy, we’re friends. You can tell me. What is it?”
“I would not normally presume so far, but there is so much you do not seem to know about Veloran. It is twice now that I have almost lost you. A Doolivanti! You did not know about the danger of the Starfield. You did not know about the Grudge. You went too far into the Kaleidoscope Forest. And though every time you have managed to come out safely, they were all very near escapes. I have failed to protect you adequately.”
“Gruffy, you were amazing,” I said. “You saved my life.”
“You are too kind.” He bowed his head. “But I would like to give you something, if I may.” He turned his head and put his beak gently over his snowy mane of feathers. He plucked a feather free and dropped it into my hand.
The snow-white feather was one of his smaller ones, but it was nearly as long as my forearm. It was warm to the touch.
“Griffons do not molt like birds, Doolivanti,” Gruffy continued. “Did you know that?”
“No.”
“Only by force might we lose our feathers. They are part of us. Like my talons. Or my eyes. I may, however, give a single feather to a friend.”
“Gruffy, you don’t have to—”
He shook his head, and I stopped talking.
“This feather belongs to you,” he said. “It is yours. You may choose not to accept it, which I would understand—”
“Of course I accept it!”
He sighed in relief. “Thank you. You honor me, Doolivanti.”
“Gruffy,” I stammered, looking at the amazing gift. It seemed to glow in the moonlight. “I-I don’t know what to say.”
“There is more to it,” he said. “This feather is connected to me, and if you wear it, you will be, too. If you are in need and your slightest breath touches the feather, I will know it, and I will be able to find you.”
“I blow on it and you can find me?”
“The wind is the companion of the griffon. The wind you create is even more precious to me. If we are ever separated again, you need only call. I will answer.”
“Gruffy…”
“I will protect you, Doolivanti. None shall harm you so long as I breathe. I swear it.”
I threw my arms around his neck and hugged him tight. After a moment, he brought a taloned arm up and wrapped it around me.
“Thank you, Gruffy. I’ll wear it always.”
“Thank you, Doolivanti.”
My mind swirled with so many thoughts, but I held the feather tightly as we returned to the clearing. Ripple’s eyes widened when she saw it, but she didn’t say anything. Squeak also watched me, his dark little eyes flicking from the snow-white feather to my face and back again. He, too, made no comment. Pip was asleep.
Gruffy laid down, and Ripple and I snuggled against his furry, feathery hide. I fell asleep holding Gruffy’s feather tightly.
My dreams were colorful and without sense. The faces of Mr. Schmindly and Tabitha flashed by. A worried Auntie Carrie and Uncle Jone, talking to policemen at my house. I saw Mom and Dad behind the shadowy bars of a prison. I saw my brother running through a forest, holding the stone knight that Dad gave him, his wavy golden hair bouncing atop his head.
I woke, and sat up. Gruffy’s chest rose and fell in slumber. Ripple was curled into his side, the stars in her hair glowing softly. Her long gown looked like a river that had suddenly stopped moving. On a branch above, Pip sat immobile, beak tucked under his wing.
I stood up, and turned. He was nearby. The Mirror Man. Darthorn. I could feel the connection between us. I peered into the forest, searching.
Just beyond the stream in the shadows, I saw his tall silhouette astride the giant pug.
Scritch scratch.
I looked down. Squeak stood at my shoe. He looked up with his tiny, marble-like eyes.
“Please don’t wake the others,” I said, glancing back at Darthorn. “I … need to talk to him.”
Squeak looked at the Mirror Man, then back at me. He smoothed his whiskers on both sides of his face, then sat down.
“I’ll be okay.” I jumped across the brook and moved toward the towering Mirror Man, who slowly dismounted the pug and waited.
“Darthorn,” I said.
He stood absolutely still.
“I know you. And you know me, don’t you?” I walked up to him, touched the big shield on his left arm, then moved my fingers to the edge and pulled it open, revealing his fist, clutched tight around the golden Grudge.
I put my fingers over his.
“I want you to give this to me,” I said.
He moved his hand away from mine.
“You’ve held it a long time—” I began, but the catch in my throat stopped me.
I suddenly knew who he was, who he had to be.
He and his giant friend protect all who are in danger …
“I want you to show me who you were before you touched this,” I said.
He didn’t move for a long time. Then, slowly, the mirrored fingers separated, and he opened his hand. I batted the Grudge aside. Darthorn flinched, his helmeted head swiveling to look at it.
I kept his giant mirrored hand in mine until his head swiveled back to look down at me.
“It’s okay,” I said. My reflection in his helmet was tall and warped. “We’ll figure it out together. I promise.”
For a long moment, Darthorn simply stood there, unmoving. Then, suddenly, his armor began to slide aside in pieces the size of playing cards. Square upon square of mirror slid back, joining with the next square, and then the next. The mirrors retreated all over his body, receding like a wave up to his helmet, and then down to his shield. The shield went last, shrinking until all of the pieces became one card-sized mirror that he held in the same hand that had held the Grudge.
Darthorn was taller than any adult I’d ever met. His muscular shoulders, arms, and torso were mighty. Nobody was that muscular, except in comic books. He had wavy gold hair and a strong jaw. I knew his face, though it was the face of a man and not the little boy my brother had been.
“Theron…”
“Darthorn.” He shook his head.
He had the same gray eyes, the wide nose. This was my brother. Even at nine years old, he’d always had wide shoulders and a strong body. Theron could climb up doorjambs and hang from them by his fingertips. He was constantly moving, playing, sprinting, jumping, wrestling. If Theron had become one of his own superheroes, this was what he would look like.
“Theron…” I tried to keep my voice steady. “It’s me, Lorelei.”
“I am Darthorn.”
The name he had chosen confirmed it, which was why it had stuck in my mind from the start. Theron and I used to invent fictional characters together and draw them, play them out. Theron always drew superheroes. When he was four years old, his most powerful superhero was Thorn Boy. Thorn Boy could defeat Superman, the Hulk. He could wrap Spider-Man into a ball. But as Theron grew older, he made superheroes stronger than Thorn Boy. Superheroes who sounded more like men. But they always had the word “thorn” in them. Megathorn. Killthorn. Thornbomb.
Darthorn.
“Theron, it’s me, Lorelei,” I repeated.
“I…” he said.
I took his hands. It was so strange to look up at this man I knew wasn’t a man. His fingers were powerful, strapped with tendons, not the pudgy fingers of a boy.
“I missed you,” I said. “I didn’t know where you went. I was all alone.”
“I … can’t be Theron,” the man said.
“You can.”
“No.”
“You are Theron—”
“Theron can’t…”
He trailed off, and I searched his face. But he looked over my head, as though he was concentrating on something far away.
“What can’t Theron do?”
“He can’t … save Dad.”
I hugged him around the waist, as tightly as I could.
Darthorn began to shrink. In moments, he was my size, then shorter, then the size the nine-year-old Theron had been when he disappeared in the woods.
He fell to his knees and I went with him. “I couldn’t save him,” Theron said, crumpling into me. “I was a coward.”
I held him as I used to do after one of his nightmares. It was just like it used to be, except larger. This time, he hadn’t saved me from Shandra or Danny Brogue or even mean Mrs. Coswell. He’d saved me from real monsters. Larger-than-life roaches. And I could hold him. That much, I could do.
“I ran away…” Theron said. “It was attacking Dad, and I ran. I shouldn’t have run. I let the monster get him.”
“Tell me from the beginning.”
“I wish I’d never gone to the outhouse,” he mumbled. He let me go and turned toward the brook, wrapped his arms around his knees. He looked at the water and his voice became a monotone.
“The clouds were heavy,” he said. “There were no stars. I knew it was going to rain, but I really had to go. So Dad took me.”
“I remember,” I said.
“So we went to the outhouse and I used it and then we went back outside. There was already thunder.” He opened his hand, and the mirrored playing card had become the silvery stone knight figurine Dad had given him, nestled in his palm. “I left it in the outhouse,” he said, looking at the figure. “I set it down and left it there by accident. And then when we were almost back to the tent, I remembered. I told Dad we had to go back, but he said it would be there in the morning and we could get it then. So I … I yanked my hand out of his and ran back to the outhouse.”
He paused.
“I should have waited until morning. I should have listened to him. But I didn’t.” He turned the figure over in his hand. “When I came out of the outhouse, there was a monster. A real monster, not like we used to make up. It was on Dad’s head, an octopus with black tentacles. Dad was fighting, but it was winning, and I…”
He slammed his fists against his head.
“Theron, don’t—”
“I ran, Lore. I was so scared. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know monsters were really real. So I ran.” He shook his head. “I should have fought it, but I ran.”
I scooted next to him and put my arm around him. “You did what you were supposed to do. If Dad couldn’t fight it, you couldn’t have.”
He shook his head. “Well, I turned around. When I stopped being so scared, I ran back to fight the monster. I knew I wasn’t big enough, but I wished for it so hard that I heard a voice whispering that I could be. That I could be Darthorn. And I started to feel bigger. But I couldn’t find Dad. All the trees were different. They weren’t the campground trees anymore, they were these trees.” He waved at the forest around him. “I couldn’t find him, and I swore that no one else would get attacked if I could help it. And I forgot about the campground. I forgot about you and Mom and Dad. I didn’t mean to.”
I put a hand on his arm.
“Where is the campground?” he asked. “How did I lose it?”
“It’s not here,” I said. “This isn’t our world.”
He looked back at his silver figure in his hand. “Where are we?”
“Gruffy calls it Veloran.”
“Have you been here all this time, too?”
“No,” I said. “I was left behind. I’ve been living with Auntie Carrie and Uncle Jone. For a whole year. But Dad’s stone brought me here.” I pulled the necklace out. “I wished to find you guys, and I came here.”
“You wished?”
“Yes. I can make things happen. Like you made yourself into Darthorn. And I know who took Mom and Dad.”
“You do?” he asked, looking up at me. His stone knight flattened into the mirrored card and unfolded over his hand, then unfolded again, starting to cover his arm.
“Wait,” I said. “He’s not here. He’s taken Ripple’s kingdom, and that’s where we’re going. His name is Jimmy. A boy from our world.”
Theron narrowed his eyes. “Jimmy who?”
“He was in Annalee’s class. Short red hair.”
Theron’s face darkened. “I know that boy. He beat up Micah.” He clenched his teeth. “He’s a bully.” His mouth became a flat line and he looked at me through narrowed eyes. “Jimmy Schmindly.”
My ears rang. “What?” I whispered. Mr. Schmindly. Have you seen my son? Mr. Schmindly’s son was the Ink King!
“I don’t forget names,” Theron said, mistaking my question for disbelief. “And it’s a doofy last name.”
The Ink King’s father was my praying mantis shrink, who knew about the Wishing World, who had been trying to control me for almost a year now. I could barely breathe. I felt like I’d eaten rotten food.
“He has our parents?” Theron asked.
“Yes,” I said. Mr. Schmindly. Jimmy Schmindly. Froggy Pop Star Schmindly. All working together.
“Well, he’s going to give them back,” Theron growled.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, he is.”