Stiltskin (Andrew Buckley) (26 page)

Robert held onto Lily’s shoulder, as he could barely see his way up the stairs. The floor flattened out and he could see the outline of the high doors at the other end of the old hall.

The howl that echoed through the castle was one that Robert would never forget, partially because it was one of the singular, most chilling sounds he’d ever heard and partially because the events that immediately followed were nigh on unforgettable.

“That’s not what I think it is, is it?” asked Robert, already pretty sure he knew the answer.

“Yes, he must’ve changed at will.”

Robert banged on the ceiling high double doors. “Open up, we want out!”

Nothing.

“It’s strange, though,” said Lily. “Why would he change?”

“Can you open these doors?”

Lily pulled on one of the large circular door handles, and the door creaked open. The first thing Robert saw was the moonlight spilling through the doorway. The second thing he saw was the shocked expression that had affixed itself to Lily’s face.

“What? What is it?” said Robert. He looked out through the doors and saw the full moon sitting comfortably above the castle walls. The Pixies lining the walls looked down at the doorway; their wings twitched with anticipation.

“Run, Robert!” shouted Lily and her voice dropped an octave at
ert
.

“What? Why?”

And then his common sense kicked him hard in the head.

“She’s a werewolf,” said the voice in his head calmly, “and it’s a full moon.”

“Oh. Shit.”

Lily staggered out of the doorway and gripped her head with both hands.

“Oh shit, oh shit.”

Lily’s back bulged beneath her clothing; her hands widened and the fingers stretched; hair grew across the back of her hands.

She swung her head up toward the moon. He face was becoming longer, her eyes burned bright amber, and Robert watched in a frozen silence as her teeth grew pointier.

“Rugghhnn!” growled Lily.

“Sound advice,” said the voice in Robert’s head, “you should run.”

Robert’s feet were moving before the rest of his body clued in. He flew at the door, ignoring the growing chatter and shouts of the Pixies above, turned the handle of the door set into the castle wall and threw his weight against it. The last thing he saw before he slammed the door shut was Lily, or the beast that had been Lily, tearing the shredded clothes from its body with long claws. Its head was now a wolf’s head, and it stood upright on long, muscular legs, its whole body covered in hair. Lily the werewolf let out a long howl.

Robert, running breathless, almost tripped over the Gnomes.

“General! Lily’s… werewolf… full moon… big… really, really big,” said Robert as he struggled for breath.

The Pixies shifted their eyes to the outside of the wall.

“Yes, moron,” said Gnarly, “we know. I suggest you run.”

“What are you two going to do?”

“We can take care of ourselves but we can’t help you. We won’t harm Lily and there’s no way to get you out of here easily. Running is your best option right now.”

Something heavy banged against the door.

“Moron, run!” shouted Gnick who had produced a dagger and threw it with complete accuracy at a particular pudgy-looking Pixie who plummeted dead to the ground in front of them. Four Pixies flew down to eat their fallen comrade, and then remembered what was trying to get through the door.

Robert now saw that General Gnarly and Gnick each had a length of thin rope. They both lassoed a Pixie and were dragged up into the air as the creatures shrieked and attempted to fly away.

“Run, moron!” shouted General Gnarly as he rose up and above the castle walls.

You don’t need to tell me twice.
Robert then realized that he had been told several times. He turned and sprinted off in no direction in particular.

Robert wasn’t any sort of athlete. He’d failed at almost any sport he’d ever attempted. His physical education teachers in school had blamed it on him being gangly and uncoordinated and suggested he be thankful that he was able to put one foot in front of the other without hurting anyone. Robert wasn’t a good runner because he could never find the correct motivation. It seemed pointless. On the flipside, he had always maintained that he could have made an excellent track star if there was someone chasing him with the intention of inflicting bodily harm.

It was that motivation of self-preservation that spurred Robert to run as if a massive, possibly hungry werewolf was chasing him. He could hear wood splinter somewhere in the distance behind him as, he assumed, Lily broke through the castle door. He held onto the fond hope that she wouldn’t chase him. He then made the mistake of glancing back to see the girl he had once thought to be beautiful, now large, hairy, and drooling, running on all fours along the road after him.

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” said Robert in between breathing.

He veered off the path and headed toward trees that led to the East, or was it West?

“East, I think,” said the voice in Robert’s head.

“Thanks,” said Robert.

He glanced back again and wished he hadn’t. The wolf was gaining ground.

“You should look for a door,” said the voice.

“A door. Right. But won’t that take me to Othaside?”

“Well, there are no werewolves there, are there?”

“Excellent point.”

He reached the trees and looked back to see the werewolf skid to a halt fifty feet behind him. She was snarling.

“Lily, are you still in there?” shouted Robert with as little futility as possible.

The creature’s eyes shone in the moonlight and she stood up on her hind legs.

“Shit,” said Robert and fought to keep control of his bodily functions.

“Shit,” agreed the voice.

The werewolf was at least seven feet tall, with dark hair and long, sharp-looking claws. Her knees were inverted, like a wolf’s, and she sniffed the air.

“Lily, it’s me, Robert. Remember?”

The wolf threw its head back and let out a long howl that was answered by a deeper howl coming from the direction of the castle. It occurred to Robert that the Historian must have been stalling, knowing the moon was coming. He felt a pang of sorrow for what the old man had done to Lily, but the thought was fleeting as the wolf dropped to all fours and charged at Robert who turned and ran into the trees.

The forest was dense, which Robert hoped would slow down the large creature. That small glimmer of hope was smashed into tiny pieces, burned, drowned, hung, drawn, quartered, and laid to rest in a quaint little area of Robert’s mind as, seconds later, the sound of trees being literally pushed over could distinctly be heard behind him.

“A door, need a door, looking for a door,” he panted.

Robert tripped on some sort of spiky shrubbery and tumbled out of the trees into a tiny clearing. And all was silent. This was not comforting. The sound of crashing trees had at least been a small reassurance that danger was behind him somewhere. He scrambled to his feet and listened intently to the silence. Moonlight shone through the treetops. He reached into his shirt and pulled out the vial of blood. Now seemed a good time to use the White Rabbit’s gift to have a door take him anywhere he wished. He was almost certain that anywhere he wished would be better than here, or at least would offer the opportunity of not being torn to pieces. And then he heard it. Breathing. The sort of deep, heavy breathing often heard on the other end of creepy phone calls. And then he felt it. Warm drool dripped onto his face and down his left cheek. If his entire being wasn’t overtaken by sheer unadulterated fear, Robert would have been disgusted that he was being drooled on. He didn’t want to look up, but he’d long since lost control of what his body should or shouldn’t be doing.

He looked up.

The werewolf was clinging to a tree, thirty feet off the ground, staring down at Robert.

“Nice doggy,” was all Robert could think to say.

The werewolf dropped to the ground in front of Robert with the agile grace of a prima ballerina. Robert tried to picture the werewolf in a tutu. It didn’t look funny.

The werewolf opened its mouth to reveal the kind of teeth no human ever wanted to be within fifty feet of without a good, sturdy, electric fence. The creature roared in Robert’s face… or at least it would have, if Robert’s face had still been there. Robert was already weaving through the trees with the grace and dexterity of a drunken spider monkey. The werewolf leaped into the trees, and Robert looked back just as she crashed down behind him and swiped out with one clawed hand.

Robert felt the cold tingly feeling of something slicing into his flesh and he pitched forward, felt a yank on his neck, and rolled to a stop. He looked up to see the werewolf looking down at him, something shiny hung from a bloody right claw. The vial of blood: Robert’s passport. He could feel warmth spilling slowly onto his back and watched as the giant creature sniffed at the air.

“There!” screamed the voice in Robert’s head.

Inexplicably, without any sort of reference other than
there
, Robert knew to look to his right and saw exactly what the voice was talking about. A distortion in space, a tear in the fabric of reality. A door.

Robert dived between the two trees to his right and could feel the werewolf’s breath on his neck. He stood before the door and hesitated.

“What are you doing?” said the voice.

“I don’t know where it’ll take me.”

“You can either go or stay but one of the options has your flesh being ripped from your bones. Just saying.”

The doorway shrank to half the size.

Robert jumped headfirst through the doorway as the werewolf pushed itself through the trees with a crash. The world around him slid into a swirly sort of mass and for a moment, Robert thought he’d passed out. To his dismay, he found that he was wrong.

Rumpelstiltskin left the City of Oz as night fell and shadows overtook the city wall. He had the information he needed and now all he had to do was find a door to take him to Othaside. It took a lot of self-control not to bolt from the city, but with the City Guards patrolling the streets and the Agency on his tail, it made more sense to lay low and leave once it was dark.

The Dwarf followed the coastline to the West, hoping to avoid any foot traffic, as the coastline was treacherous at the best of times. Strong winds were always a hazard to those taking the coastline path; there was always the risk of being blown off the two-hundred-foot high cliffs that plummeted toward the ocean. The high cliffs ran from the City of Oz all the way to the borders of Munchkinland.

Two hours out of the city, Rumpelstiltskin found a door but was severely disappointed at its location. The door was situated floating in the air around six feet away from the cliff’s edge, over the thrashing ocean. The moonlight illuminated the doorway nicely, and although ninety-nine percent of doors appeared close to the ground, there was always the tricky and rebellious one percent that chose to appear wherever the hell they wanted to.

The evil Dwarf stood with his hands on his hips, contemplating the distance to the door and whether he should just keep looking and find one that wasn’t suspended two hundred feet above the thrashing ocean and sharp jagged rocks.

No, he’d already wasted enough time. This was it. He turned and walked ten feet away from the cliff edge, then turned back, braced himself, prepared to run, and then decided he should back up some more. This was it, one final piece and then he’d be able to finish what he started. He ran. It wasn’t really as fast as he’d hoped. He tried moving faster; panic began to set in as he approached the edge. He changed his mind exactly 0.457 seconds too late and tried to skid to a stop. Failing miserably, he tripped over a rock and propelled off the edge of the cliff, through the air, and straight through the door.

As it turned out, Robert and Rumpelstiltskin were passing through doors at the exact same time in two completely different places. In the nether regions of the ethereal doors’ transit system, they actually passed right by each other but never noticed. When someone experienced a feeling akin to their insides being rearranged and the concepts of up and down have vacated one’s existence, it’s often surprising how much people fail to notice.