But on the other hand, he was good at it. The fabric of the universe understood his mind and was trying to help him. Was trying to form its complexities together and present to him a solution in a way he could best grasp it. Just like what had happened with the Haunce.
Tick gained control of his emotions and forced himself to read the words.
The smallest thing begins to grow
It needs no light, it needs no glow
This thing, it fears the weakest breath
And yet it cannot embrace death
The greatest man or bull or steed
Or queen or doe or stinging bee
Eats it, smells it, drinks it some
And one day it they will become
Tick sighed. He’d hoped the riddle would be easy, that the answer would jump out at him. But no. Of course not.
He started thinking.
“My name is Mordell,” the woman said to Lisa and her mom. She sat on the grass next to them, her legs folded beneath her flowing robe, her back straight, and her hands settled on her knees. “I am a Lady of Blood and Sorrow, a new order started by our master, Mistress Jane, to serve her in the quest to create a Utopia for mankind. To bring eternal happiness to humans once and for all. We bear our name of despair to teach the world that we will do anything, make any sacrifice, to bring this Utopia to pass. We are servants only.”
Lisa felt queasy as Mordell spoke. She seemed to have a blank stare as she recited her mantra, as if it had been beaten into her since she was a kid.
“Why are you looking for my son?” Lisa’s mom asked. She had the Barrier Wand gripped in one hand, the other hovering above the button on top. Lisa also had a hand on the device. They could wink away with one click.
“Because we know he is with our master,” Mordell replied. “We believe that they disrupted the fabric of Reality by using such astronomical levels of Chi’karda that they were ripped away into the Nonex.”
Mom gasped, and one of her hands flew up to her mouth.
“The Nonex?” Lisa repeated. That didn’t sound very good. “What’s that?”
Her mom looked over at her, her face somehow showing even more worry than it had before. “We don’t know much about it, but it’s a place that both exists and doesn’t exist, trapped somewhere between the dimensions of Reality. Sort of a no-man’s-land, where your mind is the only thing keeping you alive. They say it’s where you go if you ever meet one of your Alterants.”
Lisa had the thought that her mom was a true scientist, unable to stop herself from breaking it down to textbook explanations despite knowing her own son might be trapped there. But her eyes held deep love and concern still.
Mordell continued. “Mistress Jane has been training us to understand the ways of Chi’karda. It flows here in ways it does not in the other Realities. We’ve brought every one of our kind from the stations we’ve established throughout the Thirteen Realities. Even as we speak, they are gathering inside the Great Hall of the castle behind me, which by fate, survived the destruction.”
“What are they doing?” Lisa asked.
Mordell’s eyes focused on hers for the first time. “We are meditating, probing the universe, seeking any sign of Atticus or Mistress Jane. We must find their nanolocators or sense their presence. We have to be ready to snatch them if they appear, as soon as they appear. Right now, it’s as if they have been wiped from Reality.”
Lisa’s mom didn’t seem surprised, as if she’d given up doubting anything anymore. “And how did you find us? Did you wink us here?”
“We have the data on your son’s nanolocator. In our probing, we saw you looking for him. And then you were captured by the Great Disturbance that has plagued the Realities ever since our master disappeared. We rescued you from it and brought you here so that you could help us. We’re no longer enemies; we have the same purpose.”
Lisa’s mind caught on those two words: Great Disturbance. The lady had said them as if they were the name of a place or a person. She asked what it meant.
Mordell looked into her eyes once again. “We call it the Void of Mist and Thunder, and if we don’t find a way to stop it, the lives of our master and your brother, and the quest to build Utopia, won’t matter. Because every last person in the Realities will be dead.”
Lisa and her mom looked at each other, dread hanging in the air like soaked curtains. How did you even follow up something like that with questions? There were too many to know where to start.
Mordell stood up in a move so graceful that Lisa didn’t even notice until the woman was on her feet.
“Come,” the Lady of Blood and Sorrow said. “There will be time for explanations later. Right now we need you to join us in our meditations and help us probe the universe until we find those we seek.” She turned and started walking toward the broken door of the broken castle.
Lisa knew there’d be no discussing this with her mom. They both got up and followed the strange woman into the darkness.
Chapter 14
Watching TV
Mothball was thankful something had finally gone right in her life. Klint Tanner had given her a cup of hot tea as they sat down in his living room to talk about the world and its problems. The news was going to be rough and depressing, she knew it, but at least she had some tea to warm her bones and settle her nerves.
Sally had asked for chocolate milk, which embarrassed Mothball to no end. Especially when the buffoon asked if he could have a straw to “sip it up with.” Oh, she liked the man well enough, she supposed, but how he’d become a Realitant, she’d never know.
Tanner sat down in a chair opposite them, a remote in his hands. There was a huge television on the wall, bigger than any Mothball had ever seen in her life. Of course, they didn’t do a whole lot of that sort back in the Fifth Reality.
Tanner was a scrawny man with mussed-up hair and whiskers on his chin. But he had sharp eyes, and he took his job seriously.
“I’ve put together a hodgepodge of what’s been going on lately,” the man said after everyone was settled. He clicked the remote, and the television buzzed to life. “I’d say sit back and enjoy the show, but I don’t think you will very much. It’s not pretty.”
“Oh, doncha worry, son,” Sally said, his straw pinched between his fingers as he slurped his chocolate milk. He looked like an overgrown two-year-old kid in overalls. “Back where we work, we sho ’nough used to things that ain’t purty. Ain’t that right, Mothball?” He laughed, a booming sound that could only be described as a guffaw.
Mothball wanted to slug him; she knew very well he was talking about her. But then again, Sally wasn’t the handsomest cat in the litter, so maybe he was poking fun at himself as well. “Right as rain, you are,” she said. “But I’m sure you were a cute wee one when you were born and all. Been downhill ever since, it ’as.”
Sally laughed again.
“Shall we, um, get on with it?” Tanner asked.
“Yes, indeed,” Mothball replied. “So sorry for my partner, here. A bit cracked in the skull, he is.”
Tanner smiled, but it was a haunted one. “I’m afraid you’re both going to lose your appetite for laughing soon. The whole world is in one big heap of a mess. Fires, riots, rebellions, anarchy. Looting and murders. Like I said, it’s not pretty.” He pointed his remote at the television and clicked it again.
A horror show came to life on the big screen.
Paul had never understood why people liked to drink warm milk. He’d heard of it before, but it always sounded nasty to him. Warm chocolate milk, maybe. But take out that brown stuff and he wanted no part of it. Milk was meant to be ice-cold, especially when washing down some cookies.
At least those were yummy. Oatmeal and raisin.
Gretel was sitting in her chair, eating and sipping along with Paul and Sofia, but she’d yet to say anything about . . . well, anything. Paul still had no idea why they were there, which was why all he could think about was how much he didn’t like warm milk.
/> Sofia cleared her throat. “We really appreciate you letting us in, but I don’t think we have a lot of spare time on our hands. I’m sure Master George wants us to learn what it is you have to tell us, and then get back to him.”
Paul felt like he needed to add something. “Yeah, let’s get on with it.” He winced on the inside. That had come out a little harsher than he’d meant it. “I’m dying of curiosity here. Ma’am.” He threw that in there to sound polite.
Gretel took the last bite of her cookie then drained her cup of milk. She placed her dishes on a small table beside her. “I understand your impatience, but you’re going to have to bear with me a few moments longer before we get to my part of this story. First, I need to hear yours.”
Paul wanted to groan and kick something, but he kept himself still and quiet.
“What do you mean?” Sofia asked.
Gretel shrugged as if it were obvious. “I haven’t had one squirt of communication with the Realitants—or civilization at all, for that matter—in more than a year. I’m no longer what you’d consider ‘active,’ and informing me of the latest has to be on the bottom of George’s to-do list. So I need to get caught up on everything that’s been going on.”
“Everything that’s been going on?” Paul repeated. “That’s like asking us to give you a quick wrap-up of the Civil War. You have any idea how much has happened in the last year?”
“Well, actually, no, I don’t. Which is why I need you to tell me about it.” She folded her hands in her lap and raised her eyebrows.
Paul looked over at Sofia. “You tell her.”
Sofia had impatience stamped all over her face, and she started speaking immediately, as if she didn’t want to waste one more second. She began in the only place that made sense—how she, Paul, Tick, and Sato got recruited by the Realitants—and then she flowed into the problems they’d had with Reginald Chu and Mistress Jane. On and on and on she went, speaking so fast it gave Paul a headache trying to keep up, but eventually she got to the part about Jane trying to sever the Fifth Reality from existence and almost destroying the entire universe instead. She sounded like she was telling someone how to make breakfast.
Finally, she finished.
Gretel didn’t say anything at first; she just kept looking at Sofia as if she needed some time to absorb all the things she’d been told.
“Well?” Paul asked to break the awkward silence. “What do you think? Things as rosy as you pictured, living out here in your swamp palace?”
The old woman looked sharply at him, her expression turning grave. “Son, what you’ve just described to me is far, far worse than I imagined, even in my worst nightmares after the earthquake that hit this place. I think I finally understand why George sent you to me. Come, we need to enter my safe haven.”
She stood up, her eyes distant, and gestured for the young Realitants to follow. Paul and Sofia exchanged uneasy glances then joined Gretel, leaving the comfy living room with the warm fire and entering a cold, uninviting room with shiny steel walls. There was a bare light in the ceiling that flickered and a large safe in one corner of the room. Gretel shut the door behind them with a heavy, ringing thud; Paul spun around to see that it was also made of steel like the inside of a bank vault.
Gretel spun a wheel-handle and clicked a big lock. Then she walked over to the safe in the corner—a big, black square—and started turning the large combination dial. Paul stared, wondering what in the world they were about to see.
As Gretel continued to work at the safe’s mechanism, she spoke over her shoulder. “I don’t call it the safe haven for nothing. It’s a haven for my safes. A safe within a safe. What I’m protecting here is very important.”
Paul asked the obvious question. “What is it?”
There was a loud click, and then the door of the safe swung open. Paul and Sofia stepped forward to see what was inside. It was an old, tattered, dusty shoebox. Gretel pulled it out and set it on the floor. Carefully. Then she sat right beside it, folding her legs underneath her like a teenager. Paul and Sofia sat next to her on the ground. Paul’s eyes stayed glued to the box. He was so curious he almost reached out and opened the lid himself.
Gretel flicked both of them a knowing look. Then she lifted the warped lid and flipped it over. Inside the box lay a small cube of gray metal with a green button on top. The old woman lifted up the cube and held it out for everyone to see.
“Push this button,” she said in a mesmerized voice, almost like a chant, “and the Realities will change forever. For good. Or for evil.”
Chapter 15
The Ladies of Blood and Sorrow
Tick sat in the snow in the meditative pose of a Buddhist he’d seen once on TV—his legs crossed under him, his arms resting on top of them with his fingers pushed together and pointing upward, and his eyes closed. Couldn’t hurt, he’d thought.
He’d been trying for at least a half hour to push all other thoughts from his mind and focus on the riddle he’d seen written on the ice. But he was having a hard time concentrating. The words floated in the darkness of his thoughts, visible in his mind’s eye as white letters on a black background. He ran through the lines, letting the skills he’d developed for this sort of thing take their natural course as his brain digested and regurgitated the riddle again and again:
The smallest thing begins to grow
It needs no light, it needs no glow
This thing, it fears the weakest breath
And yet it cannot embrace death
The greatest man or bull or steed
Or queen or doe or stinging bee
Eats it, smells it, drinks it some
And one day it they will become
Tick sat in the wind and the cold and relaxed, doing what he did best.
Thinking.
Lisa and her mom followed Mordell down a long, cold passage under the hard stone of the castle, walking along the dark waters of the stream that rushed by. Lisa knew this was the place Tick and his Realitant friends had barely escaped from during their first harrowing trip to the Thirteenth Reality. Imagining them at that time—Tick and the others desperately waiting for the Barrier Wand to kick in and wink them out, while hordes of bloodthirsty fangen beat down the walls and came after them—sent chills across her skin. It made her feel incredibly sorry for her lost brother, and made her love him more than ever before. Tears welled up in her eyes.
She knew what had happened next. The Barrier Wand didn’t even have a Chi’karda Drive inside its golden case at the time—Mistress Jane had secretly removed it—but Tick had displayed his unbelievable power over Chi’karda, using his powers to wink everyone to safety on his own. There had been signs and hints his whole life that there was something special about him, but after that day, the Realitants knew it for sure.
Tick was a wizard. A silly word, but that’s how Lisa saw him. Sure, Master George claimed Tick’s power could be scientifically explained—or someday would be—but Lisa didn’t care about the specifics, the nitty-gritty details. Her brother was magic, he was special, and they needed to find him so he could do great things for the world. For all the worlds.
The passageway led through an arch to the right and into a small chamber carved out of black rock. Mordell silently led them through the opening and into the room that had absolutely no decoration or furniture of any kind. The only light came from a single torch that burned and hissed in a sconce on the wall. About twenty other women sat upon the hard ground in a circle. One break in the ring was vacant, and it was just big enough for the three newcomers to sit down.
“Even though its size is humble,” Mordell said in a solemn voice, “we call this the Great Hall because its purpose is grand. This hallowed place is where the Ladies of Blood and Sorrow come to show our respect and devotion to Chi’karda and to renew our commitment to seek a Utopia for all mankind.” She looked at Lisa and her mom. “Your presence here is allowed by my invitation only. Please, sit.”
She motioned towar
d the empty spot in the circle. Lisa and her mom, holding hands, went over and sat down on the smooth surface of the black rock floor. Her mom cradled the Barrier Wand in her lap, and Lisa noticed that her finger hovered over the trigger button at the top.
Lisa took a moment to study the circle of women, all of whom were dressed in the same off-white, coarse robes that Mordell wore. The Ladies each had a meditative, almost blank look on their hooded faces. It was creepy in the scant light.
Mordell sat down next to Lisa. “We all know of the nature of this room in which we have gathered,” she began. “The Great Hall, birthed by the will of our master, Mistress Jane herself. For reasons we may never learn, the Thirteenth Reality is more focused with Chi’karda’s might, more concentrated, more plentiful in its power than any other world. And this hallowed place is the heart of that power, which is why our master built her castle on this land and carved the Great Hall in this rock. Using the methods taught to us by She Who Tamed the Fire, we will now join hands and probe the universe together. And when we find our master—and her companions, if possible—we must unite to bring them back here.”
“ ‘If possible?’ ” Lisa asked, not liking the sound of that one bit. Maybe they were using Tick as a means to an end and were planning to dump him as soon as they found Jane. And what was with all the fancy mumbo-jumbo talk?
Mordell turned to her, not looking pleased by the interruption. “You’ve spoken out of turn, girl. This is not allowed in the Great Hall.”