We walked right up to the moat without seeing any signs of life inside the castle. The drawbridge was down, the portcullis raised, and the gate open. “Sure. It’s always easy to get into places like this,” I complained. “Getting out is another thing.”
Kari smiled. “I admire your ability to jest at such a time,” she said.
I’m not sure why, maybe because I was still trying to catch my breath from our jog, but I followed Kari without protest as she strode into the castle. Our footsteps boomed across the drawbridge, echoing from the dry moat below. I expected the portcullis to slam down and the gate to slam shut once we’d walked into the castle courtyard, but they didn’t move.
Nothing moved.
The courtyard wasn’t all that big or all that impressive. Stone walks led here and there, but between them was nothing but bare dirt that wasn’t broken by even a single dead weed. A few wooden tools, a wheelbarrow laying on its side, and an empty, horse-drawn wagon without its horse were scattered about. I couldn’t feel even the slightest breath of wind. Between the totally still air and the sun beating down the courtyard felt unbearably hot and stuffy, so that even though we were in the brightly lit outdoors it seemed strangely like being in a room that had been completely sealed up. In front of us, the circular keep rose skyward, a tower of stone pocked with empty windows.
Kari looked around, searching every window and doorway. “I see nothing, Liam.” Her voice should have echoed in that empty space, but it didn’t. The sound just sort of got sucked out of the air.
“I don’t either.” I spoke louder than I’d intended, but the sound of my voice didn’t go very far before it disappeared, too.
“We’ll have to look inside.”
Of course. That would be where the impossible-to-stop bad guy was waiting. I wanted to debate this “have to” stuff with Kari, but since I had no desire at all to stay in that courtyard alone I followed her as she walked up the broad steps leading into the castle’s central keep.
Nothing jumped out at us. The inside of the keep felt as motionless as the outside of the castle. Kari kept going, searching deeper into the keep, while I tried to think of some excuse that would get her to lead us out of that place. It was obvious to me by now that being raised by unicorns doesn’t do much for common-sense in sisters, especially this particular sister, so I couldn’t appeal to her on those grounds. Every second I was regretting a little more having followed Kari on this quest, but it’s funny how being in a deserted castle that reeks of some hidden danger will make you want to stick close to even the weirdest relative. I stayed right with Kari as we walked through the first and second levels of the keep at a rapid pace, one eye out for monsters and one eye out for some object from my world.
Here and there we could see personal items lying about, none of them from my world unfortunately. The furniture and tapestries inside the keep seemed undisturbed by time, intruders, or weather. “Where is everybody?” I finally demanded, wanting to hear at least the sound of my own voice again in that silent keep even if it might tip off something bad that we were around.
Kari shook her head. “It is very disturbing, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Disturbing.”
“It doesn’t look like they left, but they are gone.”
“Maybe we ought to leave before we’re gone, too.”
Instead of agreeing with what I thought was a pretty intelligent suggestion, she kept on searching. “Have you seen an item from your world yet?” Kari asked. “One where time is held frozen?”
“No and no. Believe me, I’d have told you if I had. I’m not even sure what ‘where time is held frozen’ means.”
“Then freezing time isn’t something usually done in your world? Or is it like your saving of daylight?”
I bit back my first response, remembering that someone who thought it was perfectly normal for castles to appear out of nowhere might not think freezing time was all that impossible. “Freezing time usually only happens in math classes. Those can last forever.”
She eyed me warily for a moment. “That is one of your jests, isn’t it?”
“Right.”
“That’s good, because I haven’t seen any signs of mathematical instruction in—” Kari stopped speaking, staring around, one hand on her sword hilt. “Can you feel it?”
“Feel…?”
“Hush. Hold still.”
Given the circumstances, I didn’t have any problem with following her orders this time. So I stopped and tried to feel. And somehow I did. It wasn’t just the air. Something was drawing the life from this place. Something that wasn’t too far away. I know this doesn’t make any sense, but it felt like watching water drain out of a sink, only there wasn’t any sink or water and I couldn’t see anything, but I could tell life was draining away into…something. “That’s it. I’m out of here.”
“This is no time for more jesting, brother.”
“I’m not jesting, Kari. I’m deadly serious.”
“Good. We must face this threat with great care.”
“That’s not what I—”
“I feel it there.” She pointed toward the far side of the keep, then nodded to one side. “I will go around this way. You go that way. If it attempts to flee, we’ll have it trapped.”
“We’ll have it trapped?”
“Courage, Liam!”
“Brains, Kari!”
She actually laughed softly as if I were joking. Then her face went serious again and she began cautiously moving in the direction she had chosen.
I barely managed to overcome the urge to grab something and throw it at her. Talk about someone only hearing what they want to hear. Why on earth did Kari think I’d want to hang around some monster that sucked life out of castles, let alone try to catch the thing?
I guess this was the downside of Kari thinking her brother was such a great guy. She apparently expected me to live up to it. I felt a lot more like running away, but in the movies the guy who tries to run away from his friends always runs right into the monster and dies first. Besides, I’ve never liked the guys who did that. But standing around here waiting while the thing maybe snuck up on me didn’t seem like a good idea, either.
Which meant my safest option was to do what Kari said. Rats. Mentally throwing up my hands in exasperation, I tried to very carefully and quietly move in the direction Kari had pointed.
It wasn’t too long before I lost sight of Kari, but the keep wasn’t that big around so I knew I’d see her soon. I went cautiously from one piece of furniture to the next, trying to stay both hidden and protected as best I could, not even breathing loudly while I listened and watched with all my might. Okay, I was at least a quarter of the way around the keep now. I’d see Kari real soon. Or I’d hear her fighting whatever that thing was and have to decide which direction I should run.
No Kari. No monster. No noises. I kept going, even as I started to get a nasty feeling that I was more than half way around the keep. But maybe I was mistaken. I went further. Still no Kari. Then I recognized a piece of furniture. I’d come all the way around the keep and hadn’t seen her.
Which could only mean it, whatever it was, had Kari.
Running away was now obviously the smart thing to do. If Kari, with her sword and her skills suited to this nowhere, could get snapped up without a sound, what chance did I have trapped in an abandoned castle and not a cheat code in sight? I turned toward the stairs down, but found my feet wouldn’t move.
I hadn’t seen any blood or stuff, so Kari was probably still alive. And there was only one person around who could help her. Unfortunately for her, that was me, and no matter what Kari might think I was no hero. I couldn’t even move my feet to run away.
I looked back the way she’d gone, thinking of Kari in the hands of some monster. I tried to take a step in that direction and this time my feet moved.
Stupid feet.
I’d gone completely around once and not even seen anything, let alone been attacked. It wouldn’t h
urt to walk around again, would it?
Maybe.
I did anyway.
Perhaps it was because I wasn’t expecting to see Kari any second this time, but I felt that life-sucking feeling more strongly as I worked my way back around. Then, to my surprise, I felt it diminish a little. As if it’d moved away. Or as if I’d passed it…
I walked back a few steps, paused, then forward a few steps, trying to figure out at what point the feeling got strongest.
Eventually I found myself looking at a mirror.
A big mirror, taller than me and wider, too. It had been mounted on the outer wall somehow, so that it looked into the center of the keep. The frame was some sort of dull metal that looked like no amount of effort could ever make it shine. At one time there had apparently been some kind of decorations on the metal, but whatever had been there was so worn down that all I could see were misshapen lumps on the frame. Something in the back of my head was grateful that I couldn’t make out any of the old decorations, as if some sixth sense of mine somehow knew they would have been really unpleasant to look at.
I peered into the old mirror, seeing the slightly wavy reflections of everything out here. Except that, oddly enough, none of the colors from out here were reflected in the mirror. In the reflection, everything looked gray, like in one of those old movies.
Then I spotted the reflections of people. Gasping, I whirled around, and saw nothing. Nobody there. I tried to get my heart back to beating normally and looked into the mirror again. There were definitely people reflected, scattered around here and there within the mirrored castle.
I know vampires don’t reflect in mirrors. That’s, like, common knowledge. But reflections without people? I reached out to rub at one of the reflections, and felt my finger sinking slowly into the mirror.
Yikes. I pulled my hand back, staring at my finger which seemed none the worse for wear. Let’s see. Kari had come this way. Kari had disappeared. There were people in that mirror, and apparently a way to get into it. Therefore, Kari must be inside that mirror. If Kari was inside that mirror, she might need help. No, let’s face it. She definitely needed help, or I’d have heard from her already.
All right. I’d found out where she was. Now I could go get help. Some of those unicorns. It would only take…hours. What if Kari needed help right now? What if this castle disappeared again while I was gone? And even if everything worked right I had a feeling it would be sunset by the time I had retraced our steps, rounded up a posse, and made it back.
No saved games here, Liam. No way to try one thing and see what happens, then go back and try something else. I only got one shot at making the right decision.
That thing might be waiting right inside the mirror. Or Kari could be fighting for her life right now while I stood here. Did I want to spend the rest of my life knowing I had left Kari to some monster because I was too afraid to even find out if she needed me? Me, the guy who liked to imagine he would have taken the ring to Mordor?
Okay. I’d do it. I fought down my fear of the unknown, put my hand flat against the mirror, and pushed, watching my hand and arm disappear into it. There wasn’t much resistance once I’d gotten started. Before I knew it, or had time to panic, my head and body were going through.
I guess I was expecting some wild burst of color and bizarre, computer-generated imagery, but there were no exciting special effects. No menacing soundtrack, either. If I hadn’t been so scared I would have been seriously annoyed by the lack of chrome in this situation.
I stepped out of the mirror and it looked like I was inside the castle. No, wait. Everything was on the opposite side and the only colors I could see were on my skin and clothing. I was in.
Do you know how you can look into the edge of a mirror and it just seems to go on and on, as if the entire world were somehow reflected in that one mirror and you could see it if you could just get past that edge? That’s what it was like inside the mirror. As far as I could tell, the entire castle was “reflected” in here, and I caught glimpses of the outside world through the windows. But everything was colorless, just drab shades of gray.
I still didn’t see Kari. I also couldn’t see any monsters. What I could see much better now were what I had thought were reflections of people, but now seemed to be statues, scattered here and there around the place. With visions of basilisks and Medusas dancing in my head, I snuck toward one of the statues to see if it looked a little too real.
It did, with details in the clothes and face that I didn’t think any sculptor could have achieved. Oddly enough, though, the face on the statue didn’t show any sign of fear. I figured if I saw a monster I’d probably have time to look really unhappy before I got the stone treatment. This person, though, didn’t betray any expression, any emotion, just eyes and a face that appeared to have gone lifeless even before they turned into stone. All the statues were like that. If you’ve ever been in a school assembly with the most boring speaker in the world, you’d understand how all those statue people looked, like they’d been listening for what felt like forever and had given up hope of ever hearing or seeing anything interesting ever again.
If Kari was in here, I needed to find her before she or I or both of us ended up as part of the floor decorations. I started sneaking carefully through the mirror keep just as I had done in the real keep.
This time I found her, about halfway around, but Kari didn’t move when I whispered her name. When I got closer, I could tell why. Her entire body, from hair to boots, had turned a light gray color. Kari’s face had that same lifeless emptiness I had seen on the others here.
My stomach suddenly felt like I had swallowed a rock. Why was I feeling so upset at losing a crazy sister I didn’t even have until this morning?
Staring at Kari, turned gray all over and her face all sad-beyond-sad, I realized I had actually started to like her a little. It had been kind of fun having her around. Sometimes. When she wasn’t being too, you know, strange.
Bring her back, Mom had said, and I had said sure. Because as far as I knew none of my friends had ever had their sisters turn into statues in a deserted castle in another world and have to wonder how they would get her home. Sorry, Mom, there was this mirror and some kind of monster. Somehow I don’t think Mom would understand. Yeah, the birds could still perch on Kari, even though she was a statue, but it wouldn’t be the same.
I reached out to touch Kari’s shoulder, wondering whether it would feel like stone. My fingers came in contact…and I found myself a few feet away, lying on the floor, my ears ringing and my eyes blinking against a flash of light.
That sort of thing never happened to me before when I’d touched a girl on the shoulder, and I was pretty certain that even touching your sister wouldn’t knock you halfway across the room. This was definitely unusual.
Then I remembered the flash of light. I’d heard a firefighter describe what would happen if you touched a high-voltage electrical line. This seemed to have been something like that, only it hadn’t felt life threatening, just pure pain. I stared at Kari, shaking the after-effects out of my head, and spotted what I swore was a small patch of color on her shoulder about where my fingers must have touched.
Hey, had I grounded out the magic or whatever had turned Kari into a statue? Drained a little of it out of her? If I had, it didn’t amount to much. Even as I looked the little area with color faded out and turned gray again.
I sat up and looked at Kari more closely. She wasn’t as dark gray as the others here, so maybe she could still be reached. One thing for sure, I couldn’t just drop things now without trying something else.
I stood up, crossed my fingers, and carefully stepped closer to Kari again. I reached, hesitated, reached, hesitated, reached….
This was ridiculous. Count to three. One. Two. Three. Grab her shoulder tight.
I held on for a few seconds while my brains got fried, until my grip failed and I went flying backward again. It took a minute for the room to stop going around in circ
les and the flashes in my eyes to fade before I was able to look at Kari again.
Her shoulder had color. No question. Her shirt looked like cloth. Part of her hair resting near there looked like hair again. But even as I watched the color began to recede under a tide of gray. Within a short time, everything was colorless and Kari was a statue-girl again.
Oh, man. I could tell where this was leading. I knew what I had to do. But how could I? Every time I touched Kari it felt like all of her unicorn friends had started jumping up and down on my head, sticking their horns in my guts, and kicking my legs. Forget it. Game over. I couldn’t even hold on to her long enough to make a difference.
Wait a minute. Hold on to her. I get it. That thing White Lady had said. She had made me vow to hold on to Kari, hadn’t she? I hadn’t known I would have to literally hold on to her while pain danced on me, but I had said I would do it.
Yeah, right. I had told a unicorn I’d do it. Give me a break. How could that count? Especially since the unicorn had said I wasn’t “strong” enough to be trusted. Huh!
Hey.
Okay, maybe I’m not some big hero, but I had walked through that blasted mirror even though I had no idea what was waiting for me. I’m stronger than that unicorn thought I could be. I’d handled fear of the unknown. Now all I had to do was handle fear of the known, because I knew it would hurt like crazy, to help Kari.
Kari, who had told those unicorns what a great guy I was. Who had told White Lady I was a lot stronger than I looked. And I’d told Kari and White Lady they could count on me.
Me and my big mouth. I took another look at that empty face of hers, somehow incredibly sad even though it didn’t show any emotion. “Okay! Fine! I just hope you appreciate this, you little pain in the neck!”
Without letting myself think about it anymore, I spread my arms wide, swung them around Kari’s waist, locked my hands together and tried to concentrate on holding on.
I couldn’t see anything but flashing lights, my ears were full of a crackling, roaring sound, and big fire ants were swarming over me and taking bites inside and out. It just went on and on and I tried to keep my hands holding tight to each other and then it got kind of dark.