Monster High/Ever After High--The Legend of Shadow High Page 10

It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s not real, Raven repeats in her mind as the fireball zooms past her face, missing her by an inch. She smells burnt hair.

  “That felt fairy, fairy real,” she says.

  “Raven!”

  Apple, Frankie, and Draculaura rush in through the door.

  “It isn’t real,” Frankie says. “That isn’t your mom!”

  Another fireball crashes toward them, and Raven shoves them out of its path.

  “I know!” Raven shouts. “She still won’t go away!”

  The false queen raises her right hand, and lightning arcs toward them.

  “Watch out!” says Raven, but Frankie lurches in front of the others, taking the full blast. The electricity collects around her, siphoning into her body through the bolts in her neck.

  “That felt real,” she says, smoke curling out of her ears.

  “Wow, Frankie,” Raven says. “You are amazing.”

  “Maybe this is your real mom,” Draculaura says.

  “It isn’t,” Raven says. “I just can’t seem to…” She shuts her eyes to focus, and when she opens them, the wings have disappeared, but the evil figure still hovers, fire building in her left hand again.

  “I can’t do my electricity trick with fire,” Frankie warns.

  “I’m trying to think of a version of her that isn’t dangerous, but nothing works!” Raven says.

  A fireball streaks toward them, and Raven pulls them down to a crouch. The top of her head is hot; the air sizzles.

  “Have you tried not thinking of her at all?” Draculaura asks.

  “Believe me, I’ve tried that for years,” Raven says.

  And then a squad of bunnies riding on goat-back charges into the room.

  “Um…” Frankie says.

  Also, the bunnies raise kazoos to their mouths and blow them noisily at the queen.

  “Er…” Draculaura says.

  The bunnies on goat-back vanish in a puff of pink confetti. The false queen stares with an expression of confusion.

  “What the… what was that?” Frankie asks.

  Apple raises her hand sheepishly. “That was me. I was just wondering what Maddie would do in this situation, and that’s what happened.”

  “That… is a hexcellent idea,” Raven says.

  Raven asks herself the same question. And as she imagines the answer, it happens. The menacing metal tables and chairs in the room grow feathers and beaks. They march in formation and squawk at the floating apparition. The fake queen casts fireballs at the bird-furniture, melting them into slag just as a bright cloud forms above her head. The cloud emits a tinny tune like that from a music box, and then it rains multicolored bees. The bees giggle as they fall; then they plink against the queen and disappear with puffs of smoke.

  About the time the girls start laughing, the fake Evil Queen finally disappears. Everything inside the tower disappears, except a giant, smiling sweet potato pie.

  “Is eating the pie an option?” asks Apple.

  The pie gasps in a kind of pastry terror and then vanishes.

  The walls of the tower begin to flicker.

  “We should probably—” Raven begins to suggest.

  The four girls run down the stairs of the tower and almost reach the bottom just as the whole thing vanishes. They thud the rest of the way down.

  “Ow,” says Apple.

  “No more sleeping for today,” Frankie says, checking herself over and seeming pleased that she’s all in one piece. “Let’s keep going.”

  After firing up the compass to get their bearings, they are off and running. Or walking, actually. They are off and walking.60

  60 Not my best paragraph, but I think I’m generally getting better at this!

  Another fork in the path and five hundred and eighty-two steps (according to Frankie) later, a dark shape looms over them in the fog. To Raven, it looks like a small mountain with two bent trees growing from its top.

  “Is anyone else imagining that’s a giant girl-eating sheep?” Apple asks.

  To Apple, it apparently looks like a giant sheep.

  “A giant girl?” Frankie asks. “Eating sheep?”

  “No,” Apple says. “A giant sheep. That eats girls.”

  “It’s neither of those things,” Draculaura says. “It’s a building.”

  A building in ruins, to be exact. Towers jut out here and there, some collapsed, some intact, like a grand ancient museum that has weathered earthquakes and a thousand years of neglect. It was built on a white stone island far lower than the bridge on which they’re walking, so the structure appears half-buried, a kind of stone weed sprouting from the fog. The girls’ path arcs slowly downward until the bridge ends on the stone island dotted with gray boulders. The fog rolls back until it surrounds the island like a wall, just as it did at Ever After High.

  Carved on an archway entrance to the building is

  “I don’t speak that, whatever it is,” says Draculaura.

  “Hold on,” Raven says. As she emerges fully from the fog, that familiar heaviness settles on her. Her magic is back. She casts a translation spell.

  “I’m betting it says Abandon all hope, ye who enter here,” Frankie says.

  “Or maybe Speak, friend, and enter,” guesses Apple. “It could be there’s something pleasant and wonderful waiting for us inside.”

  “Really?” Frankie asks.

  “I’m trying to use the power of positive thinking,” Apple replies.

  Frankie cracks a smile.

  Purple energy flows from Raven’s hands to the letters above the entryway. The magic brightens, creating a circle like a lens, and, looking through it, she sees the letters change.

  “Not totally clear,” Raven says, “but I think it says Lost Library, maybe?”

  The magic glow fades, and the letters above the building are replaced with LOST LIBRARY, MAYBE?

  “Wow, you weren’t kidding about the maybe, were you?” Draculaura says.

  Raven opens her mouth to explain but is interrupted by the boulders in the courtyard, which have begun to groan. And move.

  “Zomboyz!” Draculaura shouts.

  Every single “boulder” is standing up, clearly not made of rock at all. They’ve been shielded by a top-level cloaking spell.

  “Mother,” Raven breathes.

  “Come on, Frankie,” says Drac. “We’ve taken care of the Zomboyz before.”

  She pops into bat form and emits a sonic scream at one group. Frankie faces another. She rubs her hands together and extends them, and a zigzag spark shoots out. The Zomboyz glow briefly, then continue to shamble forward.

  “Um, that worked pretty well last time,” says Frankie. “Maybe I’m too drained of electricity?”

  “Or my mom enchanted them, shielded them from our attacks!” says Raven.

  Draculaura tugs on Raven’s arm, pulling her back to the bridge. “There are too many of them. Come on!”

  The girls stumble back, and the Zomboyz lurch toward them.

  “If only we had all our friends to help,” says Frankie. “We’re better together.”

  “A posse of monsters would be fairy helpful right now,” Apple agrees. “Raven, throw a fireball!”

  “What?” Frankie sputters. “We can’t do that! Zombies are people, too, you know!”

  The Zomboyz gather at the front of the bridge. The path is narrow here, so in single file they march onward. The girls step back, trying to keep their distance.

  “Sorry,” Apple says. “I… I’ve never known any zombies before. This still doesn’t feel real to me.”

  Raven casts a magical barrier between the girls and the approaching horde, but the barrier flickers and fades almost immediately.

  “Curses!” she says. “My magic is useless again.”

  “They’ve pushed us back into the fog,” Frankie says.

  Kazoos blare a fanfare, like the announcement of oncoming cavalry. Down the bridge charge a dozen goats, each with a bunny on its back. The goat-bunni
es leap over the gathered girls, charging the Zomboyz with a chorus of kazoo honks. The Zomboyz stumble away, confused, their wide eyes even wider.

  “Uhhhhh.” They moan.

  “Hooray!” Frankie cheers, clapping for the riders.

  The bunnies press their attack, honking furiously until they push the Zomboyz into the courtyard of the library. Once out of the fog, the goats and bunnies vanish.

  “Was that you?” Frankie asks Apple.

  “It worked before,” Apple says, shrugging.

  “Voltageous,” Frankie says. “I love the goat-bunnies.”

  A Zomboy groans louder and tromps back onto the bridge.

  Raven’s magic is muffled in the fog, but her imagination isn’t. She closes her eyes and imagines her pet dragon, Nevermore, who lives with her at Ever After High. Is she lost in the fog? Raven’s chest feels tight.

  A roar she knows well blasts from above. An enormous purple dragon dives at the Zomboyz on the bridge. They scatter, hurrying back to the safety of the courtyard. Nevermore circles the girls twice and then shrinks to roughly cat size, landing next to Raven.

  “What is that?” Draculaura beams at the little dragon.

  “My pet. She’s a young dragon, but she can biggify herself.” Raven’s shoulders droop. “But, you know, this isn’t… this isn’t the real Nevermore.”

  “Imaginary?” Draculaura asks.

  “The real one is back there,” Raven says, nodding in the direction they came from. “At least, I hope she is.”

  The dragon, without even changing size, charges a Zomboy approaching the bridge again, and he backs up. She exposes her dragon teeth and hisses.

  “Still,” Draculaura says, admiring the dragon as she flaps back to Raven. “So cool.”

  “I guess we can keep them at bay with dragons and goats,” Frankie says.

  “And bunnies,” Apple adds. “With kazoos.”

  “And bunnies with kazoos,” Frankie agrees, smiling.

  “But we can’t stay here!” Raven says. “The compass is pointing at the Lost Library, so Maddie must be there. And maybe my mom, too. We have to get in.”

  Frankie taps her fingernail on one of her neck bolts. “You know what? I think I have an idea.”

  THE EVIL QUEEN THROWS OPEN THE IRON DOOR to the dungeon. The Lost Library was sadly lacking a proper dungeon, so she’d formed one from broken pieces of stone, using willpower and magic. Everything she has done, every spelltacular deed, every takeover and power-grab, she accomplished with willpower and magic. It was a relief to return to full magical power on the island of the Lost Library, but she never lost her willpower.

  “And I will have more power,” she says aloud, smiling at her own cleverness.

  The single occupant of the dungeon, Madeline Hatter, waves. The Evil Queen’s shoulders twitch, and she straightens her cloak. She is uncomfortable with friendly greetings in general.

  “You will put that flapping hand away,” the Evil Queen proclaims, “and you will tell me the truth!”

  “Yes! I will!” Madeline Hatter proclaims right back, stuffing her hand into her pocket.

  “You will tell me what they are,” the queen says, “where they are, and what their plans are!”

  “Yes!” Maddie repeats. “I will!”

  “Then speak, Hatling!”

  “I shall speak!”

  “Yes!”

  “About what they are! Where they are! And what their plans are!”

  “Get on with it!”

  “They! Are! Hedgehogs! They are in Lizzie’s garden! And they plan to eat! To eat… tomatoes!”

  “Hedgehogs? No, you addle-brained tea-swiller! The Narrators!”

  “Oooooh. The Narrators! I was confused. When you said I would tell you what they are, I didn’t know you meant that you would tell me what they are. It might have been all the shouting. I mean, I’m used to shouting. Lizzie shouts a lot, too, and… why were we shouting, again?”

  The queen conjures a spray bottle from thin air and squirts a single burst of water in Maddie’s face.

  “Focus, little wretch! Focus!”

  “Plegh,” Maddie spits, shaking droplets of water off her face. “Water? What kind of a person puts plain water in a spray bottle? Let me at least put a tea bag in there.”

  Back in the height of her glory, the Evil Queen had any number of pet cats in her magnificent castle, as any decent sorceress should. She’d found a spray of harmless water to be a highly effective method of training her kitties not to jump up on her potion table. If it worked on cats, why not Wonderlandians?

  “I’ll do it again,” the Evil Queen says, dangling the bottle menacingly. “You know I will. Tell me what you know.”

  “Okay, okay,” says Maddie. “What I know. I will start with dormice. A single one is called a dormouse—”

  “About the Narrators, you fool!” the Evil Queen shouts, using the spray bottle again.

  Water squirts in Maddie’s face, interrupting what was bound to be an excellent exposition on dormice.

  “Why, thank you, Brooke,” Maddie says, dabbing water off her nose. “Dormice are a passion of mine.”

  “Aha!” the Evil Queen bellows. “You speak to them even now!”

  “No, no, no,” Maddie says. “I was talking to Brooke, not the hedgehogs. There’s no way those little guys could hear me from here. I mean, they have good ears, but we all have our limits, you know?”

  The queen leans so close their ears almost touch, and she tilts her head to listen.

  “When you do that with your head,” Maddie whispers into the silence, “you look like a bird.”

  The queen sprays Maddie in the face again.

  “You know,” Maddie says, “it looks like you’re having fun with that. Can I try spraying you now?”

  “Who is Brooke, Madeline?” the Evil Queen asks. “You thanked her earlier.”

  “Oh, she’s this super-nice Narrator girl,” Maddie says, not realizing that giving the Evil Queen any information at all about Brooke or any other Narrator might be extremely dangerous.

  “Oops,” Maddie says. “Forget that Narrator stuff I said. Brooke is… a river. That babbles. Like me.”

  The Evil Queen smiles a slow smile. “Names are important, and knowing Brooke just may make a spell possible.”

  “I’ve never had a spellpossible before,” Maddie says. “Is it breakfast food or luncheon food or snack—?”

  “They will fall,” the Evil Queen says, “these Narrators who play dice with our lives, who watch and wheedle, gloating from their hidden towers. I will take the power of the thing they fear, and I will crush them beneath its heel!”

  Maddie holds up a finger. “Are you talking to me? Because I didn’t catch much of that. Or… oh! Are you auditioning for a play? That was a pretty good monologue. Now, are you going to sing sixteen bars of a show tune?”

  “I am talking to them,” the Evil Queen says. “The Narrators. They should know their end is coming. They should fear.”

  “Fear the… heel, right? I got that. You think the Narrators are afraid of boots or something.”

  “They are afraid of Shadow High, little Wonderling,” the Evil Queen says. “And I am about to become its new headmistress.”

  The queen chuckles to herself as she exits the dungeon. She picks her way through the crumbling library, stepping over fallen stones, sweeping her velvet cape past wobbly bookcases. One wall has fallen away completely, and she has a view into the vast white haze of the Margins. There are books everywhere, scattered on the floor, open on stone tables, some still resting on ancient shelves. She stands behind a halved pillar of stone, almost as if it were a lectern and she were about to give a speech to the fog beyond. She pulls from her robe the Monster Mapalogue and lays it on the pillar. The map has changed again.

  “The Lost Library is here. And look there, Shadow High is just where those ancient texts said it would be. Nothing remains hidden from the Evil Queen! Nothing!”

  The Evil Queen start
s to laugh. She laughs louder and louder, her voice crackling. She’s so amused she squirts herself in the face with the spray bottle.

  She sputters on water. “Ugh, that really is annoying,” she says, throwing down the bottle.

  Then the Evil Queen gets back to laughing. She raises her hands dramatically, gold fire crackling all around them.

  “Narrators,” she says, “if you’re going to run away, now would be a good time.”61

  61 Oh stet, I do not like the sound of this!

  THE GIRLS ARE STUCK ON THE BRIDGE, ZOMBOYZ advancing into the fog. Any mistake and the girls will tumble over the side, down, down into the lava below. And Frankie’s plan is… well, it’s not foolproof.

  “I’m having second thoughts,” says Frankie. “Maybe we should run.”

  “Run where?” asks Drac.

  “Back. Away. I don’t know. Lately, my plans cause more trouble than good—”

  Ploop. Ploop.

  “There’s that plopping sound again!” says Frankie.

  “More like a long plop,” says Draculaura. “A ploop.”

  Plop-plop ploop. Plop-plop-plop. Ploop.

  “You hear it, too?” says Apple. “I swear, it follows us around.”

  “Wait…” Frankie holds up a green finger. “It’s not just random plops now. Long ploops, short plops… It’s Morse code. The plops are sending a message!”

  Frankie closes her eyes and listens so hard her ears spark. She translates the short and long sounds into letters. “M-U-S-T-S-T-O-P-Q-U-E-E-N-H-U-R-R-Y-M-U-S-T-S-T-O-P—”

  “‘Must stop queen, hurry,’” Apple repeats. “Something is warning us about the Evil Queen!”

  Yep, it seems someone is using plops to send a message to the characters in a suspicious way! And that is very much against Narrator Rules!62

  62 But… maybe Mom and Dad are interfering because the Evil Queen is up to something bad. Paragraphically bad. Story-ending bad?

  Hurry, Raven. Hurry, Apple, Drac, and Frankie. Hurry and get past the Zomboyz so you can stop the Evil Queen!

  “Okay, if we can get off the bridge,” Frankie says, “your magic should work on the island, right, Raven?”

  Frankie still can’t help cringing when she says magic. Maybe here magic is more than just unexplained science? She likes knowing the why of things, but the only way they are going to get past the Zomboyz right now is with something she doesn’t understand. With magic.