J A M E S

 

Angus blathered on about the forest, but James didn’t care—wouldn’t even look at it as they drove through.

“Can we stop and walk around?” Rain asked.

“No.” Even to his own ears his anger was a gunshot, but after they’d emerged through the endless tunnel Angus filled them in on Lilly’s condition. James wanted to leap out of the cab. He was sure he could outrun this bumbling truck in this misfit forest and Lilly needed him and how could she be pregnant—about to give birth! He had no choice but to stay in the truck and he hated not having choices—but he couldn’t send the shrapnel of his fury into Lilly’s innocent friend.

Angus, on the other hand…. If Rain weren’t in the backseat, James might have strangled the bearded Scotsman, chucked his body out and driven the rest of the way himself. No, Angus wasn’t innocent in this, never mind his protests that he was helping. A grown man didn’t drive an eleven-year-old girl away from her family, away from the known world. Where the hellfire were they?

Finally they left the wacky forest and entered a woodland that looked more normal. Angus shot him nervous glances. “Almost there.”

And then they were out of the woods and in…. Well, there wasn’t a welcome sign, but it had to be Town Town—a ridiculous name for a ridiculous place. Angus had brought his child to a lunatic asylum and James would never forgive him. The buildings were little more than ramshackle hovels and as the brakes screeched, spitting up dirt, the lunatics emerged to greet them.

James was first out of the truck. A gaggle of shrunken old ladies, dressed in church clothes, toddled out of the candy store.

“I’m here for Lilly.” He struggled to maintain eye contact with them. He’d expected dazed, milky cataracts, not this sharp, scrutinizing gaze. As Rain joined him, the little old ladies shifted their attention. Their wrinkly faces crinkled even more as they smiled.

“Hello!” said Rain. “Have you seen my friend?”

“Such a wonderful girl!” said the crone in chick-yellow.

“You must be Rain,” said the one in a synthetic coating of Pepto-Bismol.

“Where is she?” James demanded.

Again, the old biddies found something more interesting to look at, and James turned to see what had distracted them.

He stumbled backward. Seven armed heathens stalked toward him, their faces like tattooed savages, eyes murderous, weapons raised.

“Who brought you here?” one of them bellowed.

Angus stepped out from beside the truck, demurely waving a finger. “It was me, Decembra, sorry. It’s Lilly’s dad, so the door was unlocked.”

The savage turned to address the old ladies. “We really need to fix that door.”

The old ladies shrugged and nodded. “Maybe when the rest get back,” said the one in sickly blueberry.

“Look, I don’t want to be here anymore than you want me here. I’ve come for my daughter. Just show me where she is and I’ll be on my way.”

But instead of getting an answer, the heathens came closer, their eyes on Rain. Bless her heart, she had no awareness of the danger they were in and James felt an obligation to protect her. But before he could put himself between them, Rain smiled and met the savages halfway.

“Hello, I’m Rain! Thank you for helping my friend Lilly!”

The armed women looked like they wanted to eat her, their smiles salivating as they encircled her.

“She’s our friend too,” said the heathen with a curved knife.

“You look different from your photograph,” said a girl with a spear.

“Is she okay?” Rain asked. “We’ve been so worried about her.”

“Better than okay, young friend.” The old ladies surged forward, scurrying with surprising speed.

The ancient ladies and the savages started escorting Rain across the road, toward a ruin with a massive door. Realizing they meant to leave him behind, James jogged to catch up. He looked back at Angus, who casually leaned against his truck.

“I’ll stay. Take ya home when you get back.”

Back from where? Michelle was going to kill him—they were already late for supper, his phone wasn’t working, and if these crazy women did anything to Rain she’d never forgive him. Only a true idiot would lose someone else’s daughter while searching for his own.

One of the heathens snarled at him from the doorway and he was afraid she wouldn’t let him inside. But she did. Her breath smelled like decomposing rats.

 

 

“Oh wow!” Rain said, goggling the floor, the ceiling, the nothing.

James wasn’t impressed. Tree stumps. A garden. A large cauldron forgotten over a dead fire. It looked like a witch’s abandoned fort. Two of the armed women kept close to him, watching him the way an amused cat kept its eye on a mouse it wasn’t quite ready to kill.

“Have you always been called Rain?” asked an old lady in the flesh of a cantaloupe.

“Of course!” Rain said. “My mother is very into nomenclature.”

“It’s a good name for a warrior,” said one of the armed women, who, James had to concede, might indeed be a warrior. That they’d trained with those weapons was a worse thought than if they were punks who just liked to look dangerous.

Rain ran to a huge stump, upon which was a crinkled photograph. “This is me and Lilly! She really was here— look!”

She handed James the photo and he took a shuddering breath. It was tangible proof. This nightmare was real. When Lilly’s growth spurt began he hadn’t known they’d entered a slipstream, and would be pulled deeper into the phenomenal with each passing day. More than anything, he wanted out. He wanted out even more than he wanted to find Lilly. But he needed to finish this chapter. An understanding dawned on him: if he found her, if he successfully completed his mission, everything might return to normal. Wasn’t that how such stories went, a reward for enduring a life-changing trial?

The youngest warrior held her spear for Rain to examine. She touched the carvings on the shaft, her eyes aglow with awe as if she’d been shown the key to a magical kingdom.

“This is ridiculous. Angus told me—” James stopped. Fourteen heads (fifteen, including Rain) snapped their attention on him and he reconsidered acting like a pissy tourist. Courtesy, even fake and forced, always brought better service. “Lilly’s in trouble and I have to get to her, she needs a doctor.”

The old women scoffed.

“Doctors, what do they know,” said the Pepto lady.

“She’s having a baby!” he shrieked. Screw courtesy, lunatics couldn’t be reasoned with.

“She’s not the first. The female body is designed—”

James guillotined the lavender freak’s words, not in the mood for a lecture. “She’s eleven!”

“Well, twelve. Twelve now,” the sick blueberry said.

“Time works differently here.”

“I’m three months older than Lilly, so am I twelve too?” Rain asked, obviously hoping she was.

“Why yes you are.”

He clenched his teeth. “The point is she’s a little girl. Who needs help.”

The warrior whom Angus had called Decembra planted herself in front of him, too close. She stank of skills he didn’t have. Surviving a war. Plotting revenge. “You have no understanding of your daughter. Fortunately she came here. We helped her.”

“She’s fine, Mr. Wolf.” The chirpy one in pukey green waved her hand dismissively.

James couldn’t fathom their lack of urgency. “She’s alone!” he thundered.

All fourteen of the lunatics laughed, uttering a chorus to contradict him.

“She’s far from alone.”

“Who do you think we are—”

“…never leave a child alone—”

“…no clue who Lilly—”

“…this is why we don’t let—”

“Gotta fix the door.”

As quickly as they’d erupted, they fell silent. The silence lingered for an uncomfortable spell during which everyone gazed at him. James refused to feel wrong for caring about his traumatized, ill, suffering, young child. None of these kooky, flippant women could be trusted, but he had to calm himself: rushing them wasn’t producing results.

“I’m sorry, I’m sure you’re all…well intentioned. But Lilly’s been gone for…. I don’t know, time is—as you said—confusing. I made mistakes, I know that. I want Lilly to know I’m sorry, I want her to know how much I love her, I want to take care of her—”

“Lilly has needs beyond what you want.”

To his shock, the words came from Rain. She looked at him with a gravity that defied her eleven—twelve—years.

“We were going to give you a meal,” said the chick-yellow crone. “Not a gathering, as we gave Lilly, but our simple hospitality. There’s no hurry, the others aren’t back yet. But I suppose we can skip the niceties and head out. If that suits you better.”

James hated how they’d turned him into a bratty schoolboy. He didn’t understand what was happening, where they were supposed to go or who these “others” were. But if it led him to Lilly and the completion of his mission…. “Thank you, yes.”

The fourteen abominable women headed toward a giant hedge. Sunlight poured in as they pushed it open.

The youngest warrior fell in beside Rain, handing over her spear. “Doubles nicely as a walking stick.”

Rain thanked her, and gave her a little elbow nudge like she used to do with Lilly. Girl code: buddies. She glanced behind where he was bringing up the rear, and in her eyes were questions. And disappointments. And accusations. He almost felt Rain begging him don’t mess this up. As if all he had ever done was mess things up.