Chapter Six
The Frog Creek Woods shifted, blurred, then reformed into a grey forest. The trees around them were tall, skeletal things. The sky was the brown roiling potion of a cauldron, only inverted.
“It’s like a fairy tale,” Jack whispered.
“A twisted one,” Annie added, reaching for the medallion. The moment she touched it, however, the pendant fell apart in a puff of dust. Not a good sign, she decided.
They had to move carefully through an obstacle course of downed trees and deadfalls to exit the woods. When they finally emerged, things were no better.
Where their house had once stood were a row of worn bungalows topped with rusted tin roofs. Many windows had been boarded over and the final structure on their left had burned to a charred, black frame. How anyone could possibly live in one of them was hard to conceive.
Jack and Annie moved dreamily toward the main road.
“What’s that smell?” Annie asked, her nose crinkling.
Jack had noticed it, too. It started out good and sweet, like cotton candy, then ended with a twist of rotting food.
“I know,” was all Jack said.
The moment they reached the road at the end of where their driveway should have been, a loud, booming sound erupted from their left. Turning, they faced the direction of downtown and shivered. The sound, growing in volume, was like a parade, many voices cheering (or screaming) as one.
“What is—?” Jack asked.
From a distance, something black and purple moved toward them, an ocean wave, rich with foam, rushing up a dark beach. They stood there, transfixed, until the foam took shape. The reality of what rushed toward them were hundreds of bizarre creatures, snapping at the night air with tiny, sharp teeth.
“I think they’re running from something,” Annie said.
“Something worse.”
Together, they turned and ran toward what (in their world) would have been the direction of the Frog Creek Library. In their world, it was a place of peace and tranquility, a haven where they had spent much of their childhood.
Who knew what it would be here in Dark Creek.
The road turned slightly right, then straightened. Jack noticed the absence of lines on the road, dotted white or yellow. It was just a dull black, scarred here and there with long, sharp gashes.
The sound behind them lessened, but their pace away from it did not. It wasn’t until they reached an intersection that they chanced to stop and listen. The sound was still there, but only a muffled thing.
“Look!” Annie said, pointing to their right. Where the Frog Creek Library should have been was a small, white house. The same grey woods loomed menacingly behind it, frozen in a shadowy near-embrace.
“Why can’t we remember what happened on that last mission?” Jack asked, staring uneasily at the house.
Annie sidled up beside him and took his hand.
“Whatever did happen must have been a big deal,” she said.
They stood there for nearly a minute, not wanting to move toward the house, yet knowing they must. The sound of the dark parade growing louder again forced their decision.
Each step a burden, they managed to move off the street and onto the weeded cover of the hill. Annie noticed that the dominant weed below happened to be clover. Not typical clover, however, but a variety with five, six or more leaves each.
There was no drive or path to keep their direction true. To make things worse, some unknown, invisible force continually steered them away from the house. In the end, they had to force each impossible step until reaching the tumbledown porch.
Just before the slanted boards of the steps, a shadowy motion caught Jack’s eye. To the right of the first step was a shadow that, upon closer examination, revealed itself as a storm grate. The five or six bars were thick and stained with some dark liquid. Kneeling before it, Jack stared in open shock at the two faces looking up at him from below.
Although much older than he remembered, older by far than he and Annie, were friends and fellow adventurers, Teddy and Kathleen.
“Jack!” Kathleen rasped. “Oh, Jack, I knew you’d come back one day.”
Tears in his eyes, Jack held out his hand, touching the tips of her fingers through the bars. Teddy stared up at them, tried to speak but couldn’t.
“How long have you been down there?” Annie asked, then wished she could take the words back.
“We’ve been here the whole time,” Kathleen said. “Ever since Vortigern found out what we were doing.”
“What were we doing?” Jack asked. “We remember everything except what happened here in Dark Creek.”
“It was a rescue,” Teddy managed to say, his eyes swollen. “Everything was planned out in advance. It should have been an easy mission.”
“But we didn’t know then that Vortigern was behind it all,” Kathleen added. “Morgan and Merlin had no clue.”
“My son, Malcolm, and Jack’s daughter, Julia, are missing,” Annie said quickly. “We don’t know if they’re with Morgan and Merlin, or…”
The sound of the creatures from down the street grew even louder.
“Quickly,” Teddy said. “Go inside and speak with her. Finish what we started.”
“But—” Annie said.
The rolling creatures emerged from the road and began climbing fitfully up the hill toward them.
“Go!” Kathleen said and their faces faded quickly into the darkness.
Jack and Annie jumped up and sprinted up the creaking stairs. The door was already ajar, so they rushed inside and slammed the door shut behind them. There was a moment when they feared the creatures would force the door and overtake the house, but after a few seconds, they appeared to have moved off, no longer interested.
Waiting for their breathing to return to normal, Jack and Annie turned to survey the small living room. A tall grandfather clock rested at an odd angle against one wall. The face of the clock, as well, was strange. Instead of two or three hands, the face supported five or six. Rather than the numerals one through twelve to mark the passage of time, the numbers 42, 23, 16, 15, 8 and 4 ringed the outer edge.
“Weird,” Jack breathed, not knowing why these numbers make him feel apprehensive.
To the right of the clock sat two, closed French doors. The lace curtains behind the many square panes fell like ancient cobwebs against the glass. As they neared the doors, the room seemed to grow cold. And then, through the door, they saw the old woman.
“That’s her,” Annie said, shaking.
“Who?” Jack asked.
The twin doors creaked open on their own and an inexplicable icy wind from behind urged them into the room beyond.
The woman stirred, shifted in her seat, then raised her chin. Soft, white hair ensconced her head like dandelion fluff. She stared first at Annie, then Jack. Her eyes…
Jack felt a confused tumult of emotion spin inside him just as the magic tree house had once spun around him. Annie simply felt trapped, not wanting to look at this person, yet helpless in doing so.
“Ah,” the woman said in a hoarse croak, sitting a bit straighter in her chair.
In her gnarled hands was something that appeared to be a tube. Her large round knuckles turning white as she squeezed it.
Her voice was old, yet strong as she spoke, “Forgive me if I don’t believe in you, Jack and Annie.”
Brother and sister turned to one another, exchanging a perplexed glance.
“Why wouldn’t you believe in us?” Annie managed to ask.
The woman laughed softly. It was not cheerful laughter.
“Who are you?” Jack asked, wishing the memories would return.
The old woman looked down at her hand, then raised one arm and offered the compressed tube to him. Jack accepted it, expecting something black and hairy to crawl quickly from inside. Nothing of the sort happened, but he quickly realized that it wasn’t a tube.
It was a book. A small, paperback book. Annie carefully unrolled it, staring in awe at the soiled cover. The illustration showed a young boy wearing a red backpack perched upon a flying pteranodon. A girl in pigtails chased him while distant volcanoes spewed smoke. The title of the book was MAGIC TREE HOUSE #1 – Dinosaurs Before Dark, by Mary Pope Osborne.
Jack and Annie looked back up at the woman, who now smiled a most unpleasant grin.
“I’m Mary,” she said.