Ensnared
Page 67
I straighten the simulacrum suit over his tux and T-shirt. He has the other suit along with his painting items inside the duffel bag he’s slung across his shoulder, ready for Morpheus once he finds him. I know he’s secretly hoping to find his doppelganger, too, although he hasn’t said it aloud.
“Time to blend in,” Jeb says, tucking Chessie’s dangling tail into my bun.
I nod, but I’m not ready to stop looking at him yet. He’s the only thing giving my legs the strength to stand.
“Just remember,” he says. “We stick to the plan. Get Hart alone, convince her to hand Red over, and I’ll search the dungeon. Once you get Red, hightail it out. Don’t worry about us. We’ll be invisible, and you can fly. Everything’s going to be all right. Send Chessie if something goes wrong, and we’ll find you.”
I nod again. There’s so much I want to say to him: Thank you for your faith in me, for always putting yourself on the line for this crazy half life of mine—I love you and don’t want to lose you . . . But all I can manage is, “Be safe.”
“Back at ya.” He tucks the duffel bag under his arm to keep it hidden under the simulacrum and starts to gather the hood over his head.
As if rethinking, he stops and laces his fingertips through my gloved hand, pulling me close. “In case I don’t get another chance to tell you . . . One, you look amazing.” He traces my eye markings where they curl out from under the fuzzy edges of my mask. “And two . . .” He turns my hand to kiss my covered palm. “You got this, fairy queen.”
Sucking in a sharp breath, I throw my arms around his neck. He hugs me tight, presses his lips to the top of my head, then steps back and pulls his hood into place, vanishing from sight.
His invisible fingertips touch my leather ones, leading me out to follow the current of creatures great and small. With the comforting pressure of his hand driving me, I trail the end of the line.
My dress jangles softly as we tromp across the wooden bridge, a mellifluous undercurrent at odds with the ominous swishing of the eels some twenty feet beneath us. A shiver races through my spine as Chessie burrows deeper into my hair.
Gurgles, snorts, and murmurs drift from the guests, shifting my attention from what’s below to what’s ahead. In appearance, they’re similar to the netherlings I encountered in Wonderland at the Feast of Beasts a year ago . . . more bestial than humanoid, some with living plants growing out of their skin. Though these creatures are twisted and gnarled, mutated from using their magic.
It’s a hard habit to break, as proven by Jeb’s struggle to walk away from the power. Maybe that’s an upside to my letting Red possess me. It will give Jeb even more incentive to leave, in case my vow for a future isn’t enough.
As we step off the bridge, we filter through a small covered portico, then the courtyard opens up—some three acres wide. Rising high in the center are two thirty-story skeletal frames, tall and loopy, like twin roller coasters made of giant bones, eerily similar to the petrified dragon remnants on the castle towers. So mesmerized by the sight, I nearly trip over a reptilian tail in front of me. A snarling mouth travels along its scales, sliding from the creature’s face to the end of its tail, and yaps at me like a disgruntled puppy.
Apologizing, I take a few steps back.
Jeb steadies me from behind and I focus on our surroundings again.
When I was ten, Dad and I went to a circus in the human realm. Ultraviolet settings, disturbing neon costumes—a black-light nightmare so rich with atmosphere and characters, it took on a life of its own. I didn’t understand at the time why I felt so comfortable amid the bizarre grandeur of it all. Not until last year, when I started remembering that Wonderland’s landscapes have the same qualities and how many dreams I spent there with Morpheus.
Now, surrounded by the denizens of AnyElsewhere inside the courtyard, I can’t help but fall back into those memories. With the overcast sky and low-hanging walls folded in on us, the darkened background magnifies the fluorescent color scheme of water fountains, festival tents, and statues.
Jeb squeezes my hand three times, our signal. Since I can’t watch him go, I glance across the way where several reptilian guards escort a mutant with a grizzly’s head and a monkey’s body off the grounds in cuffs. They start down some stone steps set into the wall of the castle. It’s a safe bet they’re going to the dungeon.
“Be careful,” I whisper, though I know he’s already gone. Chessie’s warmth under my hair offers a small comfort.
I pass a cluster of fountains. An odd assortment of creatures play handcrafted musical instruments, composing haunting songs on pumpkin drums, celery guitars, and flutes made of river reeds. Glowing sprites spin in the air and perform aerial ballets, using the spouting water to propel them upward. They screech as the water changes to a haze of steam that boils their bare flesh. Breaking free, they scramble for the edges of the fountains and whimper, nursing their blisters. The bestial spectators beside me laugh and shout slurred encouragements, as if intoxicated by the violence. The steam turns back to liquid, and the sprites mount the water sprays once more. The tiny netherlings must be driven by a compulsion to seek out pain, for they continue until their bodies are so damaged, they die and turn to piles of ash.
I fight my fascination and turn away.
Everywhere I look, similar gruesome sports and sadistic games take place. In one corner, inside an open tent, feline creatures covered in scales with serpentine faces and forked tongues walk on all fours along high wires strung over a flaming pit. Their tender paws sizzle across the searing metal and the noxious scent of scorched scales fills the air. Again, I notice piles of ash where prior participants died.
“Faster!” a woolly creature with moss sprouting from his ears yells from below. “No pussyfooting! Give us a show!” The participants yowl and cry, yet still limp back into line to go again as soon as they leap down.
Inside another tent, contenders take turns crawling through a trench filled with beetles whose exoskeletons are shiny, silver, and as sharp as double-edged razor blades. Though each player is sliced and bleeding by the end, they don’t hesitate to return for another bout.
Clenching my teeth against an unsettling urge to walk barefoot through the trench myself, I make my way toward the center of the yard, where reptilian guards roll in two clear, glassy balls—each one big enough to house a garden shed—and hoist them with ropes and pulleys onto the skeletal roller-coaster frames I saw earlier. The guards lock them in place on steep inclines that will launch the spheres into the thirty-story drops. The image reminds me of the marble runs Jeb used to make with his dad, only these are to scale.
“Time to blend in,” Jeb says, tucking Chessie’s dangling tail into my bun.
I nod, but I’m not ready to stop looking at him yet. He’s the only thing giving my legs the strength to stand.
“Just remember,” he says. “We stick to the plan. Get Hart alone, convince her to hand Red over, and I’ll search the dungeon. Once you get Red, hightail it out. Don’t worry about us. We’ll be invisible, and you can fly. Everything’s going to be all right. Send Chessie if something goes wrong, and we’ll find you.”
I nod again. There’s so much I want to say to him: Thank you for your faith in me, for always putting yourself on the line for this crazy half life of mine—I love you and don’t want to lose you . . . But all I can manage is, “Be safe.”
“Back at ya.” He tucks the duffel bag under his arm to keep it hidden under the simulacrum and starts to gather the hood over his head.
As if rethinking, he stops and laces his fingertips through my gloved hand, pulling me close. “In case I don’t get another chance to tell you . . . One, you look amazing.” He traces my eye markings where they curl out from under the fuzzy edges of my mask. “And two . . .” He turns my hand to kiss my covered palm. “You got this, fairy queen.”
Sucking in a sharp breath, I throw my arms around his neck. He hugs me tight, presses his lips to the top of my head, then steps back and pulls his hood into place, vanishing from sight.
His invisible fingertips touch my leather ones, leading me out to follow the current of creatures great and small. With the comforting pressure of his hand driving me, I trail the end of the line.
My dress jangles softly as we tromp across the wooden bridge, a mellifluous undercurrent at odds with the ominous swishing of the eels some twenty feet beneath us. A shiver races through my spine as Chessie burrows deeper into my hair.
Gurgles, snorts, and murmurs drift from the guests, shifting my attention from what’s below to what’s ahead. In appearance, they’re similar to the netherlings I encountered in Wonderland at the Feast of Beasts a year ago . . . more bestial than humanoid, some with living plants growing out of their skin. Though these creatures are twisted and gnarled, mutated from using their magic.
It’s a hard habit to break, as proven by Jeb’s struggle to walk away from the power. Maybe that’s an upside to my letting Red possess me. It will give Jeb even more incentive to leave, in case my vow for a future isn’t enough.
As we step off the bridge, we filter through a small covered portico, then the courtyard opens up—some three acres wide. Rising high in the center are two thirty-story skeletal frames, tall and loopy, like twin roller coasters made of giant bones, eerily similar to the petrified dragon remnants on the castle towers. So mesmerized by the sight, I nearly trip over a reptilian tail in front of me. A snarling mouth travels along its scales, sliding from the creature’s face to the end of its tail, and yaps at me like a disgruntled puppy.
Apologizing, I take a few steps back.
Jeb steadies me from behind and I focus on our surroundings again.
When I was ten, Dad and I went to a circus in the human realm. Ultraviolet settings, disturbing neon costumes—a black-light nightmare so rich with atmosphere and characters, it took on a life of its own. I didn’t understand at the time why I felt so comfortable amid the bizarre grandeur of it all. Not until last year, when I started remembering that Wonderland’s landscapes have the same qualities and how many dreams I spent there with Morpheus.
Now, surrounded by the denizens of AnyElsewhere inside the courtyard, I can’t help but fall back into those memories. With the overcast sky and low-hanging walls folded in on us, the darkened background magnifies the fluorescent color scheme of water fountains, festival tents, and statues.
Jeb squeezes my hand three times, our signal. Since I can’t watch him go, I glance across the way where several reptilian guards escort a mutant with a grizzly’s head and a monkey’s body off the grounds in cuffs. They start down some stone steps set into the wall of the castle. It’s a safe bet they’re going to the dungeon.
“Be careful,” I whisper, though I know he’s already gone. Chessie’s warmth under my hair offers a small comfort.
I pass a cluster of fountains. An odd assortment of creatures play handcrafted musical instruments, composing haunting songs on pumpkin drums, celery guitars, and flutes made of river reeds. Glowing sprites spin in the air and perform aerial ballets, using the spouting water to propel them upward. They screech as the water changes to a haze of steam that boils their bare flesh. Breaking free, they scramble for the edges of the fountains and whimper, nursing their blisters. The bestial spectators beside me laugh and shout slurred encouragements, as if intoxicated by the violence. The steam turns back to liquid, and the sprites mount the water sprays once more. The tiny netherlings must be driven by a compulsion to seek out pain, for they continue until their bodies are so damaged, they die and turn to piles of ash.
I fight my fascination and turn away.
Everywhere I look, similar gruesome sports and sadistic games take place. In one corner, inside an open tent, feline creatures covered in scales with serpentine faces and forked tongues walk on all fours along high wires strung over a flaming pit. Their tender paws sizzle across the searing metal and the noxious scent of scorched scales fills the air. Again, I notice piles of ash where prior participants died.
“Faster!” a woolly creature with moss sprouting from his ears yells from below. “No pussyfooting! Give us a show!” The participants yowl and cry, yet still limp back into line to go again as soon as they leap down.
Inside another tent, contenders take turns crawling through a trench filled with beetles whose exoskeletons are shiny, silver, and as sharp as double-edged razor blades. Though each player is sliced and bleeding by the end, they don’t hesitate to return for another bout.
Clenching my teeth against an unsettling urge to walk barefoot through the trench myself, I make my way toward the center of the yard, where reptilian guards roll in two clear, glassy balls—each one big enough to house a garden shed—and hoist them with ropes and pulleys onto the skeletal roller-coaster frames I saw earlier. The guards lock them in place on steep inclines that will launch the spheres into the thirty-story drops. The image reminds me of the marble runs Jeb used to make with his dad, only these are to scale.
