Chapter Two
JEN
It didn't matter how loud I screamed or cursed or struggled to get away, nobody noticed that we were, in all senses, being kidnapped and drug forcefully from the building.
"Let go of me you bastard!" I shouted, shoving my elbow into my captor's ribs and struggling to get free.
"Bastard?" said the guy holding Ella's forearm. He glanced at the guy holding me and laughed. "Bet you can't say you've been called that before, can you Ob?"
The second guy's voice sounded deep and close to my ear. "Girls from home usually do have better manners. It's true."
"Who are you?" Ella snapped, trying to turn around to get a look at them as we were marched across the street towards Ella's bug. How did they even know which car was hers?
"We know lots of things about you," said the one holding Phin and me. It wasn't until later that I realized I hadn't actually said my question out loud because I was too shaken up and shocked to notice. The silver haired boy holding Ella released her and pushed her towards the car, ordering her to unlock it.
"And don't even think about running away, because it's no effort for me to catch you," he said simply. "Unlock the car and everybody get in."
"But---"
"Just do it, Ella," said the second guy.
"How did you know my name?" she asked, her hands shaking as she tried to insert her key into the door lock. Before anyone could say anything, we all turned towards the guy walking down the street towards us and shouting at us. He was dressed in the same medieval clothing as the other two.
"What took you so long? I thought you said you were coming out the back door." He reached us and glanced quizzically at the guy behind me.
"These girls chose to put up a fight," he said, annoyed. "We had to---"
He didn't get any farther before I cut him off, having spotted a patrol car cruising down the street towards us slowly. "Help!" I screeched, yanking away from my captor so quick he didn't have time to catch me as I ran towards the patrol car. "We're being kidnapped!"
But the car didn't slow. The cop just passed us, showing no sign of seeing us at all. "What did you do?" I snapped, stomping back towards them. For the first time I could see the face of the man that had been holding me. In the light, I could see that they looked younger than what they had seemed. The two tall ones looked about twenty. One had silver hair, silver eyes, pale skin and a lanky, wiry body. The one that had grabbed me was just as tall but more built, with broader shoulders and black hair and eyes and olive skin. The third one was shorter than the other two, covered in freckles with sandy hair and sharp features with a friendly, less malicious look to him. But all three were wearing those ridiculous leather clothes, mostly black, looking like Merry Men gone bad. "Why can nobody see us?" I said, standing right in front of the one called Ob and looking him dead in the eye. I was tall, but I still had to crane my neck to look at him.
"It's called magic, sweetheart." The silver haired one winked at me. "Now open the doors! I can't glamour you all forever."
Ella glanced at me, terrified. Her hood had fallen off and her dark blonde curls spilled out of her bun, framing her face in stray ringlets while she chewed on her lip ring. I shrugged my shoulders and she opened the driver's door and leaned the seat up. The dark haired one pushed Phin into the back seat, then grabbed me and tossed me in, too. He climbed in next to me, his knees almost reaching his chest in the back of the tiny car while the silver haired one climbed into the front seat, leaving the third guy stuck with squeezing in next to the three of us.
"If it's money you guys want, we don't have any." Ella sat in the front seat, staring ahead out of the water soaked windshield. Phin scooted closer to me and I tightened my arm around his shoulders in a reassuring squeeze.
"Just drive," the silver haired boy said simply. "And don't try anything stupid."
"Drive where?" Ella started the car when he glared at her.
"To your house, of course." Ob said next to me, as if it were the most obvious answer in the world.
"My house?" Ella sat upright at that. "What do you guys want with us? Please, we didn't do anything. I work in a bookstore. We're nothing special and we just want to go home."
"Which is precisely where we asked you to take us, if I recall," said the front-seat-guy sarcastically.
"Mercury..." said Ob with a warning tone. He leaned over me, shoving me against Phin with his shoulder. "We're not going to hurt you, Ella. If we did, we could have already. We're here to protect you."
"Oh, right. By kidnapping us?"
"Protect her from what?" Phin shouted, also leaning around me to look at Ob, sandwiching me. "You big bullies ruined my birthday and I'm very upset."
Mercury looked amused as he twisted around to look at Phin. "You're mouthy, aren't you?" He laughed. Phin just crossed his arms and leaned back, staring out of the window in angry silence.
It didn't take long for us to get back to Magical Minds. In a panic, I had started shouting and hitting at the dark haired boy, (who's name I later learned was Obsidian. What kind of name was that, anyway?) demanding to be taken back to the theater so I could get my bike, but the answer had been a flat out no and another order for Ella to continue driving.
When we arrived back at the bookstore, we were pushed inside as the three guys chattered about things that made absolutely no sense to any of us.
"I suppose you're not going to tell us why you've brought us here?" I said to Obsidian after he'd locked both porch doors after us.
"You'll find out soon enough," the freckled boy replied as he led us down the hall toward Bekah's old office.
"Why have you brought us here?" Ella asked as she protectively held Phin close to her once we had been released. I could see how shaken up she was: her brown eyes were wide as she tried to watch all three of the guys at the same time while they wondered around the office, picking up odds and ends to examine them carefully.
We hadn't been into the office since Bekah had died. I could understand Ella and father not wanting it disturbed, and it sent a pang of guilt through me when I saw how she flinched every time something was touched or bumped.
"What is this?" The freckled one said, leaning over and tapping on the stained glass lamp on the side of the desk. "How does this light work?" He peered over at me.
I raised an eyebrow. "You three are as outdated as the clothes you're wearing," I said simply.
"Are you part of the play?" Phin asked.
Mercury burst out laughing. "Child, no. Where we come from, these clothes are the height of fashion." He gestured to himself with both hands while Obsidian rolled his eyes. Looking back and forth from Mercury to Obsidian, I could see certain resemblances between the two of them.
"Are you guys related?" I asked, glancing from one to the other.
"How could you tell," Mercury said lazily. "We're brothers."
"Look, we need to get a move on," Obsidian said, straightening up and adjusting his leather vest. I had to admit, even though they looked like they had just stepped out of a fairy tale story, like Cinderella or something, he pulled it off. They wore the clothes like we wore ours: like it was nothing out of the ordinary. They had accents that I'd never heard before, too. It almost sounded British to me, but then again it didn't.
"Tell us what's going on!" Ella shouted now, stepping away from Phin and up to Mercury who was closest to us. "Keep your hands off of my Mom's things, too," she snapped, yanking a book out of his hands. He looked down at her, the amused look fading from his face and almost replaced with remorse.
"I'm sorry," he said, moving away from the desk and closer to his brother. Does he dye his hair? I wondered. I'd never seen someone with silver hair like that before.
Obsidian then took my arm with a simple, "Well, let's be on our way then."
"Let go of me!" I yelled. "I'm tired of you dragging me around like I'm a rag doll that you can do what you want with!"
"But I can," he said. "I'm much stronger than you, you see." Then he began to pull me across the room back towards the office door. I thought he was going to drag me out of the room until he kicked the door shut with my room and pushed me roughly towards the full size, oak framed antique mirror back in the corner of the room.
"What are you doing with me..?" I said, confused, trying to wiggle out of his grip. I didn't have time to say anything else before I was tossed towards the mirror and dissolved right through the glass.
ELLA
"Oh my god, what did you do to her?" I screamed, running for the mirror but Mercury grabbed my forearm and held me back. "Where did she go? What are you?" I was crying and screaming, my voice hoarse as I kept trying to break free from his iron grip.
"Ella, calm down. Please," Mercury said. "Gabriel, get the boy."
Gabriel, the blonde freckled one, picked Phin up and carried him towards the mirror. Phin didn't struggle. Instead, he looked fascinated as the boy stepped right through the mirror with him, followed by Obsidian. The glass rippled and fell back into shape when they had gone through.
"I'm dreaming. I'm dreaming, I'm dreaming, I'm dreaming." I began to laugh as I squeezed my eyes shut tight, wishing myself to wake up. "We're not here. We're not in my mom's office. We weren't kidnapped from a Wizard Of Oz play and drug back to my house. I'm sleeping, and this is all a dream."
"Oh, please. You humans are so naive and unwilling to accept the bizarre. You can't tell me you don't know who you are?" Mercury stopped and turned me to face him. "Please tell me you at least know where we came from."
"Do I look like someone that has any clue about what is going on?" I shouted. "What did you do with my brother?!"
"Oh, by the Lady." Mercury groaned. "Come on, then." He hoisted me up, screaming and struggling and cursing and hitting at him as if it was no effort for him, and carried me through the mirror.
I felt like I was in a plane. The air inside my head compressed and I felt like I was in a bubble. I could hardly breathe, and all I could see was my hair flying around my face and I could feel Mercury's firm hands locked in front of my stomach, holding me close to him. After what felt like several minutes, I could suddenly breathe again and I was on my face on something cold, hard and rough. I gasped in air, and struggled to push myself to my knees with my hands.
"Ella!" I heard Phin's voice and I looked up to see Gabriel release him. He ran toward me and helped me to my feet.
"I want to know where the hell we are," Jen said angrily, not bothering to notice me. She picked up a pinecone and flung it at Obsidian, who knocked it away with his hands with lightning reflexes.
"Please tell me why we had to bring her," Gabriel said, crossing his arms and giving Jen an annoyed look.
We were standing at the base of a massive cliff that loomed up behind us threateningly. Moss grew on the edge of the stone and a thin stream of water trickled from the top and dripped down, forming a small pool of water on the rock that we were standing on. The water moved across the rock and dribbled down into a large pond below us; we were standing on a large rock ledge over the water. The trees on the opposite side of the pond towered high, almost blocking our view of the sky. The leaves were bright reds, purples, greens and oranges, more brilliant than any of the fall colors we ever had in Oregon. We were even in Oregon anymore? I wondered. Something told me that we weren't anywhere even close. The pond was surrounded by tall grass and strange flowers. I thought I saw something small leap from the petals of a flower and break the water's smooth surface with a tiny ripple.
"I missed this place," Gabriel said, inhaling deeply.
"We were only gone for a few hours," Mercury replied.
"Still, could you smell the pollution in the air?" Obsidian hopped down from the rock and onto the grass below us. Looking back at Mercury, I squinted my eyes to see what had changed about the boys: they looked different somehow. It was subtle changes. Mercury and Obsidian's ears had grown longer and more pointed, poking through their thick tousled hair. Their arms and the sides of their necks and cheekbones were bumpy: when I looked closer I felt my eyes grow wide as I saw they were scales of some sort, embedded under their skin. Gabriel looked mostly the same, save for his ears had grown wide and slightly pointed at the tops, his eyes were much larger and glossier and his nose smaller and his fingers longer and pointed at the ends.
"It was a simple glamour," Obsidian said from below where he was kneeled on the edge of a rock, eyeing the water like some sort of hunter. "Mercury's good with things like that."
Mercury shrugged it off, feigning modesty. "You will be too, sweetheart," he said smirking at me, his eyes shining like molten silver.
"What are you?" I said again. I could hear the awe in my voice when I stepped closer to him and reached out to touch his arm. The scales were bumpy under my fingers, but they were there nonetheless. My eyes weren't playing tricks on me. "Where are we?"
"This is Lybrinth." He whispered. "And we are everything that humans think don't exist."