“I really didn’t mean to do that,” Clover said, looking at the thousands of tiny pieces of Sabine. “I was just trying—”
“Don’t worry about it,” Winter spoke. “You may have just saved the world.”
Clover smiled.
“So, can you swim?” she asked him.
“Came in second place in Sentinel Fields my senior year,” Clover bragged.
Winter would have stood there congratulating him, but instead she took off running toward the lake. She flew into the water and almost lost her breath due to the coldness of it. She held her head above water and gasped for air. Leven was a good distance from the shore, coughing and thrashing. He had thawed upside down and with freezing water rushing into his nose and mouth. Winter swam to him and grabbed him under the right arm.
“We have to swim,” Winter hollered at him. “Before it’s too late.”
“Where’s Sabine?” Leven asked, confused, struggling to stay afloat.
“Gone.”
“Gone?”
“It was an accident,” Clover apologized, while swimming effortlessly up to Leven.
“Clover!” Leven cheered. “You’re here.”
“Of course,” Clover smiled and spit, his forehead covered in goose bumps.
“We need Geth,” Winter yelled.
“Right here,” Geth answered, paddling over, his new arm working swimmingly.
“Toothpick,” Clover said affectionately.
Geth smiled, swam to Clover, and climbed on. “We have to go now the sun is gone. Are you ready?” Geth asked Leven.
“No,” Leven replied, smiling tightly and with chattering teeth. “I’m not sure I’ll ever be. But I’ll do it for the candy alone.”
Clover smiled.
v
Sabine was no longer. Actually, he was no longer the personage he had once been. The shattered bits and remnants of who he was lay upon the still earth as the soil turned from ice back into its normal self. The tiny pieces of Sabine melted into the dirt and dripped down deep into the ground. He was now a countless number of shadowy bits. Every piece of him hissed and surged, scurrying through the dirt like a horrid stream of fluid black ants. He could feel the influence of Leven and Winter. They were still here, in the water and swimming toward the gateway. He had no form, but all was not lost. Every particle of him whispered and pushed forcefully under the earth and into the lake, breaking out from the soil and into the Königsee. Like an explosion of deranged tadpoles he blew out into the water, swirling and pulsating. Leven was in the distance, swimming toward the gateway. Sabine collected every bit of himself into the shape of a rod and shot through the water like a torpedo toward Leven.
vi
Leven took a giant breath and swam down underwater. Geth had been right. The moment his head was below the surface he could see a faint light glowing in the distance. He pulled and kicked as he worked his way deeper and deeper. His lungs burned as a heavy anxiety smothered him. He turned to his side as if to try and resurface, but Winter was there pushing him downward. His chest felt like it was going to explode. He could see the gateway now, its corroded gray sides covered in rust and algae. It glowed bright and ominous. Winter swam by him and into the gateway. He watched her stand on the bottom of the box his grandfather had constructed and in an instant she was gone. Leven pushed forward in an effort to follow her, but before he could get there, his legs were struck by a streak of blackness.
The force of the blow propelled him away from the gateway and toward the surface. Leven spun like a rolling log as he twisted uncontrollably upward. Geth had warned him about not being able to make it back to the surface before his lungs gave out, but at the moment Leven wanted nothing other than to get some air. He was propelled at speeds he had not thought possible, forced upward by the impact of whatever had struck him near the gateway. Leven broke the surface of the water and shot twenty feet into the air. He made a terrific arc through the sky and splashed back down into the lake.
Leven kicked and thrashed, trying to right both his mind and his body. He had no idea what had just happened. Winter was gone and something had expelled him from the water.
Geth and Clover were no where to be seen.
Leven would have taken a few moments to seriously contemplate his state of affairs, but his earnest reflection was interrupted by something seizing him by his ankles and dragging him irresistibly down, back under the water. Leven screamed, and his body went rigid as it was hauled downward, deeper into the lake.
Leven willed his mind to concentrate. His eyes burned gold and he could suddenly see the recent past: there was Sabine’s dark soul, each tiny fragment melting into the earth. Then Leven’s mind showed him the present: millions of fragments of Sabine wrapped around his feet and dragging him to his death. His thoughts shifted, and he got a glimpse of the future: there he was, floating face down on the surface of the lake, his life over.
Never! Leven’s mind screamed.
His eyes sizzled as he forced the vision of his death to reverse itself. He wrestled with fate and the future to will himself to live. The future was changing. Leven looked down at the millions of bits of Sabine and used his gift to manipulate them away from his ankles and into oblivion. With one incredibly strong thought, Leven blew Sabine’s leftovers away from him. They were dispersed through the water like buckshot from a shotgun blast.
Leven had never felt his gift so strongly. He clawed at the water in an effort to get back to the top, but he was too deep. He would never reach the surface without air. His mind caught hold of fate, and the wind above the Königsee formed itself into a giant vortex, revolving and boring its way down into the water, creating a funnel of air directly above him. The funnel picked Leven up, filling his lungs with air and spinning him out of the water and into the sky.
Leven was now thirty feet above the lake, twisting like a being in a blender. He might very well have been amazed, but his mind was too busy watching the pieces of Sabine gather and regroup. Like a thick black cloud, Sabine raced in from the north, surrounding the funnel and reaching in with thin, sharp limbs to slice and grab at him. Leven’s mind raced with fear. He opened his eyes wide and manipulated the funnel cloud into lifting him higher.
The wind surged upward.
Sabine’s remnants followed, swarming like black bees in the funnel around him. Every particle of Sabine hissed and screamed in confusion and hatred. Leven focused his thoughts, his eyes burned, and the tornado exploded, the wind hurling itself into the clouds and peppering them with Sabine’s leftovers.
Leven dropped like a rock into the lake.
He hit the water headfirst and shot like a bullet down toward the glow. In an instant he could see the gateway. He twisted his body and plummeted straight toward it. There was no time for hesitation. He reached the gateway and stepped into the bottom of the box his grandfather had made.
Instantly the water disappeared, and Leven was lying on the wooden floor of a small room. He coughed and inhaled as deeply as possible. He couldn’t seem to catch his breath. A single candle burned in the far corner. He looked to his left and there was Winter, smiling at him.
“I’m glad you made it,” she said.
“Me, too,” Geth added, jumping from a nearby table onto Winter’s right shoulder.
Clover materialized next to both of them, his big blue eyes almost sparkling. “Welcome home, Lev,” he said.
Leven was still breathing hard. He glanced around in amazement, wondering if what he saw was real. “So this is Foo?” he asked, realizing that as solid as everything looked, it did have a different appearance than what he had just left.
Leven got to his feet just as the door opened and a smiling Amelia Thumps stepped into the room.
“You made it,” she praised. “I was afraid Sabine might have stopped you. I had no way to keep him from this room when he finally figured out the entrance.”
“We made it,” Winter smiled in amazement.
“Winter,” Amelia said affec
tionately, taking her in her arms. “Foo has not been the same without you.”
Winter’s memory came rushing back. Her life in Foo was suddenly an actual memory she could recall. The pieces all fell together. She saw her childhood on earth. She saw where she had been standing when she was snatched and brought to Foo. She saw her home here in Foo and the people and friends she knew. She saw Geth as the king that he really was and Amelia as the kind and unknown defender of true Foo.
Amelia stepped from Winter to look closely at Leven.
“So this is the boy?” She asked Clover, eyeing Leven suspiciously. “Are you sure he’s the one?”
“He is,” said Clover. “We’ve seen him do all sorts of odd things.”
“I’ve seen a lot of people do odd things. That doesn’t mean they’re the one.”
“It’s Leven,” Geth spoke forcefully, ending any doubt.
“Geth?” Amelia asked, bowing slightly as she said it. “You’re back?”
“I am,” Geth answered.
“You’re a little shorter than I remember,” she smiled.
“Age has touched your memory,” he laughed.
“Well, I must say this is a great day for Foo.” Amelia turned to focus on Leven. “We’ve been waiting for you,” she said kindly, opening her arms. “I’ve been waiting for you. You are my only family.”
Leven yielded to her embrace, feeling for the first time in his existence the love of family. Despite all the doubt and confusion and fear he felt, it was right to be here. She held him at arms’ length and looked into his eyes.
“I have something for you,” she whispered, her voice quivering with emotion and her eyes shining.
Leven envisioned a watch or a photo or some treasured family heirloom. Instead she handed him a round, ceramic-looking pot with enough potch powder in it to blow up the entire house they were standing in.
“This looks like a bomb,” Leven said nervously.
“It is,” she smiled, patting him on the shoulder. “I’ve been saving it for years. You need to go back through the gateway with it. Just drop it in the gateway and stand on the crack. You’ll be back here, and the gateway will be destroyed,” she said casually.
Leven looked at the ceramic pot in his hands. It was red with a purple band spinning around it. On one side there was a one-inch nub sticking out. Above the nub there was a bit of unreadable writing.
“Hurry,” Geth whispered.
Leven glanced at the gateway. The colors swirled and spun across the dirt. Leven looked again at the ball in his hands. He glanced at the others. It was one thing to have the courage to travel to Foo, but it was another thing completely to destroy the only exit he had.
“Hurry,” Amelia said, echoing Geth’s order. “There isn’t—”
Amelia’s warning was cut short by Clover’s sudden scream. Everyone looked to the sycophant to find him pointing toward the gateway. Oozing out of the light were thousands of black dots. They hissed and cackled wickedly, swarming up out of the gateway like a thick virus. In an instant they were on Leven, clinging to him, entirely covering his body. Leven thrashed and stamped his feet, trying in vain to shake them off. Holding onto the explosive, his hands were useless.
Sabine was not done.
vii
Sabine had only one objective. If he could set off the explosive inside of Foo, Leven would be gone and the gateway would be safe from destruction. His thoughts were not clear as millions of crawling pieces of his once-self tried desperately to detonate the ball.
Winter tried to freeze Sabine, but there wasn’t enough of him left for the spell to take. Clover leaped onto Leven’s head and began kicking and swatting at the swarm of gnat-sized particles of black. The darkness covered Leven completely and then began to subside as every bit of Sabine swarmed over the ball, trying to make it explode. Sabine’s remnants clung to the ball, beating it wildly. The detonator sank into the sphere, activating the explosives.
Clover yelped.
Leven dropped to his knees and dove headfirst into the gateway. His head was instantly in the lake, his legs still remaining and kicking in Foo as Winter tried to get hold of them. His mouth filled with frigid water, and the coldness was a vivid reminder of what he had so recently left. He glanced at the walls of the gateway and down at the floor. He could see the piece of sidewalk and road that didn’t match up quite right—the very same spot his Grandfather Thumps had stood on when he started all this. Leven looked at the explosive as he hung upside down with only half his body visible. The ball was covered with what was left of Sabine, every particle of it vibrating frantically. Leven dropped the pot as a noise louder than any he had ever heard shattered his mind.
Darkness engulfed him.
Chapter Thirty-One
Foo
Leven felt strange. His body was relaxed, settling like liquid on the floor. His ears were still ringing, and he couldn’t see anything but black. He wiggled his fingers to see if he were still alive. He could feel the wood floor. He opened his eyes, surprised to see light. Winter was there smiling at him again.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “We pulled you back.”
Leven looked up at Winter and at his grandmother. Clover was on the floor next to Geth. Leven glanced at the dirt of the gateway. There was no glow. Clover approached him and put his hand on his arm.
“Are you okay?”
“I’ve never been more scared in my life,” he answered, getting to his feet, and repeating the words all of them had used at least once.
Winter hugged him as his grandmother did the same. Geth was caught in the middle so he considered it to be fate and hugged Leven as well.
You may question the importance of what Leven did, but truth be told he made it possible for every dream to continue and every hope to go on—all without a single thanks from anyone.
As Clover cheered, a large gold platter slipped out from his void and clattered noisily onto the floor. Clover blushed and tried to pick it up quickly.
“Where’d you get that?” Winter asked.
“I, uh . . . I sort of borrowed it from those French guys who picked us up in the ocean,” Clover said, looking at everyone guiltily. “Is that wrong? Because if someone would have told me that’s wrong, I never would have taken it.”
Leven smiled again, amazed at where his life had come to.
“All right then,” Geth clapped. Of course it wasn’t much of a clap, seeing how he had only two little sliver arms. But it was a pretty good click. “We’ve got to get going.”
“Going?” Leven asked. “We’re here.”
“We’ve just started,” Geth said seriously. “We must get to the Turrets of Foo, and you are the only person who can return me to my rightful state. Did I not mention that before?”
Leven did not smile.
“Sabine may be gone, but the division between good and evil grows. We have to stop those who would destroy Foo,” Geth insisted. “Or all that we’ve done is in vain.”
“So we’re no better off?” Leven complained.
“Sabine’s gone,” Winter pointed out, “and the gateway is destroyed.”
Leven didn’t look as though he was impressed.
“I thought destroying the gateway was our mission,” Leven questioned. “Didn’t we—”
“Oh, it’s just the beginning,” Geth interrupted. “Maybe it would help if you take a look at what we’ll be saving,” Geth said. He jumped off Clover and onto Leven’s shoulder.
Leven stood and moved out of the room and down the dark hall. The front door to Amelia’s house opened without anyone touching it.
“How did—?” Leven asked.
“Doors know what to do here,” Geth explained.
Leven stepped out of the house and into Foo and knew, without a doubt, that he was dreaming. He had never seen anything like what he now saw. Not only that, but he could see it clearly; his sight was perfect. Mountains and valleys and rivers and foliage filled his view, but they were nothing like those he had j
ust left behind in reality. The sky was bright yellow near the ground and purple at its crown. Creatures he had never seen, and would have been unable to imagine, ran across prairies of long orange grass that blew in the wind. He could see incredible darkness to the north, and behind that darkness, thin pointed mountains that looked as if they were moving. A river of deep blue water spilled across his view, creating waterfalls in at least twenty places. The clouds were shaped differently, the air seemed to glisten, and if Leven wasn’t completely wrong, he could have sworn he saw a person flying in the distance.
“Wow,” he gasped.
“Not a bad view,” his grandmother said, putting her hand on his shoulder. “But it’s nothing compared to some of the other sights you’ll see here.”
“I can see everything so clearly,” Leven whispered happily.
Geth cleared his wooden mouth. “Now what we must do is get to the other end,” he said kindly. “Of course, that should be no big deal to you.”
“Is Winter coming?” Leven asked, still looking out at the miracle landscape in front of him.
“Of course,” Winter said.
“And Clover?”
“You are my burn,” he replied, a gold goblet slipping out of his robe.
He blushed.
Leven took another long, clear look at his new home and his next journey.
“Can I sleep before we begin?” he pleaded.
“I think we can fit that in,” Geth answered. “Heaven knows you’re going to need to be rested.”
Leven went back into Amelia’s house and to a short couch that sat in front of a huge roaring fire. The fire was not only burning, it was also singing softly. The couch wasn’t long enough to sleep on, but Leven didn’t care. He lay down and stretched out his legs, and as he did so the sofa lengthened to accommodate him. He looked at the couch and then back at all those still standing there.
“Pretty cool,” Leven admitted, closing his eyes as he said it.
“That’s nothing,” Amelia whispered, stepping up and laying a blanket over him.
Leven would have said thanks, but he was out cold.