Authors: Chanda Hahn
Mina slowed just before
entering the building. Inside, cheesy calliope music blared, but over it she
could just hear Nan’s angry voice telling the bear off.
There was a loud roar, and
then Nan’s voice cut out mid-sentence.
Mina’s heart clenched. She
darted around and entered the maze through the exit, hoping to cut them off.
Mina slipped into the back hall and came face to face with her own reflection. She
almost cried out but held in her scream. With her back to the wall, she pressed
on, trying to make her way through the maze.
Wasn’t this how it always was
in horror movies? Hero and bad guy duke it out in a mirror maze. She could have
rolled her eyes at the irony of what was happening, but she couldn’t even blame
the Fates, because she doubted the Fae bear had seen those movies.
A noise to her left made her
freeze. It came from another mirror, behind it maybe. Mina wanted to call out
for Nan or Charlie, but again, movie self-preservation told her to hold her
tongue.
She made it past two more
turns and didn’t see or hear anything else. The floor squeaked beneath her
foot, and she froze. Had she given away her position? She should have made it
to the middle of the maze by now. Where had the bear gone?
A noise came from ahead, and
Mina ducked behind a self-standing wave mirror and listened. She heard
footsteps—light and close together. Mina moved from behind the mirror.
Charlie stood in front of
her, wooden popgun hefted over his shoulder like a weapon.
“Did you find her?”
He shook his head no.
“Where did they go? I came in
the exit.” Mina didn’t think
she
missed anything, so she continued toward the front where Charlie had come in.
It would’ve been easy with all the twists and turns to have missed them. Maybe
the bear was hiding, and she or Charlie had walked right past them.
But then Mina thought she
heard scuffling, and this time it didn’t sound like it was behind the mirrors.
It sounded like it was under them.
She dropped to her hands and
knees and pressed her ear to the floor. The sound was clearer. Something large
was crawling under the floor.
“Charlie, can you go find
Ever?”
He shook his head and crossed
his arms.
“Please! We need help.”
He didn’t look happy, but he
went running out the front entrance. After she was sure Charlie had gone, Mina
backtracked to the spot where she’d made the floor squeak and searched for a
trapdoor. She didn’t want her brother to know she knew where the door was. She didn’t
want him anywhere near that angry Fae bear.
Mina felt along the floor
until she found the edge and the metal clasp. She slowly lifted the trapdoor,
expecting something large to spring out at her. When nothing terrifying
immediately attacked, she opened the door and rested it back on the floor. The
darkness under the house of mirrors almost caused her to chicken out.
She swung her legs over the
edge and dropped down to the ground. There wasn’t a lot of room below, but she
immediately saw a large wheel. The fair was mobile, so the whole house was on
wheels. As she let her eyes adjust, she could see a lot of light leaking in
through the shabby tarp wrapped around the wheel bed.
She crawled over to the next
section. Her heart sank when she noticed a large tear in the tarp where the
bear had made a hasty escape. She backtracked and climbed back into the house
of mirrors and called out for Charlie. When she pulled herself up out of the
floor, she saw Teague—not just one Teague, many Teagues.
His reflection appeared over
and over among the mirrors, each one smirking at her in unison.
Mina stood tall and tried to
stare down the reflection closest to her.
“She’s gone.”
“No, she’s not,” Mina argued.
“You’ve lost.”
“The game is only beginning.”
“I’m taking each of your
friends one by one, Mina. Like I promised I would. Even your Godmother friends
are no match for me.”
“Let Nan go!”
“Why do you demand? Don’t you
realize I’m not that unreasonable?”
A loud crashing noise sounded
outside, and the floor rumbled below them.
“What was that?” she asked,
terror filling her soul.
“Why don’t we go see.” He
waved his hand, and the building exploded outward. Pieces of mirror shards
plumed up, sparkling in the air like glitter, but none touched her because
Teague placed a protective shield around them.
Mina looked out and saw
people lying on the ground around her, hurt from the blast—men, women,
and children. Farther up, she saw the giant troll, the same one that had been
captured deep underground in the Godmothers’ Guild. It was now destroying her
school. Before, half-encased in the wall, his size had been impossible to tell.
The troll’s back had beams and pipe from the Green Mill Recycling Center melded
into it, which gave him a dinosaur-like appearance.
Someone screamed, “Godzilla!”
She closed her eyes and tried
to turn away as the troll’s large club rose in the air and came down right over
the cafeteria. The ceiling groaned as it caved in.
“Stop! There could be people
inside.”
“Why do you care about this
place or these people, Mina? I know for a fact that you don’t like school, and
most—if not all—of these students have called you names. I know the
resentment you have for them. I’m doing you a favor.”
“It doesn’t matter how bad
people treat you. It’s not worth hurting them.”
Teague stared at her, and she
didn’t back down. “Interesting choice of words. Are you saying that to save
your own skin?”
The glowing bubble Teague
placed around them grew brighter, and Mina gasped as her feet left the ground.
He hovered over the school, bringing her closer, so she could see the
devastation. The troll had moved on to the gym.
The higher they flew, the
more destruction she could see. The Ferris wheel had people on it, and one of
the giants was spinning the wheel. People screamed inside the cars as they
swung precariously.
“Make it stop!”
Constance appeared out of the
crowd and ran toward the giant. She started to sing, and a few seconds later,
the giant stopped shaking and spinning the Ferris wheel. His eyes got droopy,
and he tottered back and forth. He let go of the wheel and fell backward,
crashing into the already destroyed and abandoned dunk tank. Teague frowned at
the Godmother and shrugged his shoulder. “She can’t sing forever. As soon as
she stops, he’ll wake up again.”
Other Fae from the Guild were
running toward the Ferris wheel. Ken Wong stood at the operating board, trying
to get the wheel to work. The operator had run away, and they couldn’t get the
cages open. He signaled to one of the larger Fae who looked like he was part lion.
With a loud roar, he ripped the door off the hinge of the first car and helped
four terrified teens out. The lion sprung on top of the empty cage and jumped
onto the cart above. He pulled the door off, grabbed the first girl, and jumped
down thirty feet to land on his hind paws. As soon as he deposited her next to
Mr. Wong, the lion went back for the next student.
Screams came from the car,
but the lion was able to get the kids in the car after that to come willingly
with him as he jumped again. Another human wearing a carnival uniform came out
of the crowd and shifted into a cat. He scaled the other side of the Ferris
wheel and mimicked the first rescuer. She couldn’t be certain, but Mina had a
feeling that this Fae who had jumped in to help wasn’t part of the Guild, but a
good Samaritan.
“Cats always land on their
feet. Well, we’ll see about that.” He made a motion as if to stop them, but
Mina put herself in front of them.
“Please, no more.”
He stopped and smiled. “Do
that again. I like it when you beg.”
She would have
too—except that, as her gaze drifted down through their floating bubble,
Mina caught sight of Charlie. He stared up at them from the ground, the only
one not running away in the mass hysteria.
But her hesitation and
downward glance made Teague notice her brother as well.
“Ah, the little Grimm,” he
said. “We really don’t need two of you trying to kill me. I think one is
enough.” Teague signaled a red-brown griffin, and it dove toward her brother.
“No!” Mina gasped as the
griffin screeched, his claws extended for the kill.
But the griffin didn’t make
contact. Charlie opened his mouth and screamed in anger. A loud, shrieking,
piercing noise—so painful that Mina clapped her hands over her ears. The
griffin was hit with a force so powerful, it knocked the beast over, and it
crashed into the school.
“A siren? And he’s quite
powerful for one so young. No wonder he’s been so quiet. That takes lots of
control. I see you’re shocked as well. Somebody’s been keeping secrets,” he
taunted in a sing song voice.
“Hurts doesn’t it, when those
closest to you lie to you?” Teague leaned close to speak over her shoulder.
“You can’t trust those Godmothers.”
Charlie was shaking and
trembling. His little body couldn’t handle the power that he’d just unleashed,
and he fell to his knees on the ground and started to convulse.
“Please help him,” she cried
out. “Let me go to him.”
Teague didn’t respond. He
simply stared around him, taking in the destruction. “He’ll recover, Mina. He
just needs time. See? He’s already trying to get back up and keep fighting.
You’ve got to admire that in one so young.”
Sure enough, Charlie had made
it back to his feet. He wiped white foam from his mouth with the back of his
hand and turned his gaze up to them, furious. His eyes glowed with anger.
Charlie turned his rage toward Teague and let forth another ear piercing
shriek. The protective bubble around them cracked but didn’t break.
“Too bad, I think the first
attack wore him out. Now I wonder what spurred on his rage? Oh, I know. The
death of his mother, perhaps?”
This time, Charlie just fell
to the ground—with no convulsion. He slumped his head and appeared to be
crying.
A large ogre with a bulbous
nose came walking by with Ever in his hand. She kept trying to fly away, but he
pinched her wings between two of his meaty fingers. When he gave a tug on them,
Ever cried out in fury and pain. Mina remembered what Ever said about ogres and
how they liked to eat pixie wings. He tugged again, and she screamed.
Mina cringed.
Claire strode into the middle
of the fairgrounds with Grey Tail dragging Brody forcefully behind. She already
looked ten years younger, and she kept touching Brody’s face longingly. She had
already taken a few years of his life and she was begging for more. So much was
happening so fast, and Mina felt absolutely powerless.
Reid and Temple overpowered
Constance. Temple put a golden gloved hand over the muse’s mouth to stop her
singing. The giant slowly started to wake up, and the Fae hadn’t gotten all of
the passengers out of the Ferris wheel.
Mina watched, helpless, as
Nix ran and threw himself on Charlie just as Claire and her wolves circled him.
There was little Nix could do to save him. He was fully human now. Mina turned
in a circle, tears falling freely from her face as she watched her school
continue to crumble beneath the onslaught of the troll.
Police were arriving, and
ambulances lined the outskirts of the fairground, but they were hesitant to
move in because of the giant that stomped toward their cars.
Mina had lost the war.
Utterly lost.
She wasn’t a general or a
fighter or a leader. She was a clumsy seventeen-year-old girl. She couldn’t be
responsible for all of these people dying. She didn’t want to be the reason for
so much tragedy.
“You said you weren’t unreasonable,”
Mina choked out softly.
“I’m not.”
“Then let’s reason. What
would it take for you to stop this massacre and leave my friends alone?”
Teague looked around, his
hands held wide open. “You want me to stop destroying this… and the people who
hurt you?”
“Yes, yes I do. And I want
you to release my friends, all of them, even the Godmothers. What would it take
for you to do that and to never bother them again?”
“I think you know the answer
to that, Mina.” Teague made their bubble fly higher and higher into the sky
until they were way up in the air surrounded by clouds. “There are only two
things I want. If you give them to me, I’ll stop everything and let your
friends live.”
He stood before her, his eyes
glowing with power. She tried to stand tall in front of him, but she couldn’t
stop the tears as they fell.
“The dagger and…” She let her
voice trail off, knowing the other but unwilling to say it out loud.
“Your life.” He smiled, one
corner of his mouth pulling up to show his even white teeth.