Worlds of Ash Rewritten

Chapter 12-15

*Chapter Twelve*

Ash closed her eyes and jumped. It was going to be brutal, a violent catastrophe of pain. She was so sure she would feel only a tearing—her skin shredding from what she was about to ram into.

But, instead, there was coolness, like stepping into icy water, except it wasn’t wet. Her Poppa Henry had caught her. That was such a relief.

Ash dreamt. She had no clue that would happen. Being pulled through the doors of her usually normal, and often boring, old glass and wood cabinet was a new experience—she was having so many of those today—and maybe her mind thought it was long past time to not just make some random folder. Maybe it thought it was time to finally take a minute and digest.

Yet no matter how much she was ready to contemplate talking dogs—and the reality of Elves—it seemed her mind wanted something else. It wanted Ash to remember one of the few other dark Penthyan tales her Poppa Henry had ever told.

It had been her fault. She’d just turned eight and had believed she’d been old enough to let Penthya go into a much more sinister direction. She’d truly believed she could handle it.

“What was the worst thing in Penthya,” she’d asked.

Poppa Henry had been settling in. “Why do you want to know that” he’d said as he’d gotten comfortable at her side. “Let me tell you about the Battle of the Four Winds. It was a most amazing war that happened between Wind Weavers, Light Benders, and a whole coven of Elementous Witches. It has a happy ending too. Want to give it a go?”

Ash hadn’t; she hadn’t even been paying her grandfather any mind. She’d only been consumed with her question. What was the worst thing in Penthyan history?

She’d wanted to have her world become such a nice shade of black and white. She’d wanted to know the worst of the worst because if she knew about that then the Light Benders she’d heard of—or the Elves and a few Wind Weavers—would seem more heroic. She would even be able to tell who was the greatest of the bunch.

“So,” she’d asked again as she’d pulled her covers tight around her neck. “Who was the worst?”

Poppa Henry had sighed before shaking his head. “I can’t,” he’d said, “not the worst, and not tonight.”

“Poppa—”

“Not tonight.”

“Well,” Ash had to know something. “What about the second worst. Tell me, please.”

“But why would you—”

“Because I need the bad so I can know the good.”

Poppa Henry had smiled so sad at that. “My Little Ash,” he’d said, “good is good no matter what. We can know good to understand bad—bad only exists in the absence of good—but it doesn’t work the other way around. Good is good no matter—”

“Please,” Ash had said. She’d even made her bottom lip quiver. Her Poppa Henry had never been able to withstand a nice lip quiver.

Poppa Henry had sighed yet again. “You and your cuteness,” he’d said. “Okay, the second worst, I suppose I can tell you that. But are you sure you wouldn’t like another story—how about the one with Isabella? If you don’t want the Battle of the Four Winds, I could always tell you—”

“Poppa Henry,” Ash had started to beg, “please!”

“Okay, okay,” Poppa Henry had relented. She’d been able to see the defeat etched so deep along his face. “But if you get any nightmares—”

“I won’t,” Ash had been quick to add, “but even if I do, I don’t care. I like nightmares.”

Poppa Henry had laughed at that. “I’m sure you do. Well, here goes. The second worst thing to have ever been in Penthya…now that is hard. I’m sure many folks over there have their own list; there was the great Giant Phaygor—he was pretty bad, ate a ton of Bayden villagers, and terrorized much of Penthya. But King Denthro did kill him before the Accord with the Giant Nation was reached, so many never considered him to be all that awful. Yannin the Temptress was quite bad too, a very devious woman, but to me…to me, there can only be one thing which I would consider almost as bad as the worst in Penthya.”

“Who,” Ash had whispered. She had even already pulled her covers way past her neck. They’d rested just beneath her eyes.

“Syndon,” Poppa Henry had said, “Pride Syndon himself. He was a big Errun, the biggest ever with muscles piled on top of muscles, he could crush a…well, let’s just say that with his hands, he could do a lot of terrible things. He was tall too, really tall. Most Errun top out at about six foot five, but Syndon was well over seven feet. He towered above everything as those muscles of his—the thickness of his arms and legs—made it clear that, if he wanted, he could easily reach down and do some damage.

“Syndon was a thug, a huge and heavy beast who mainly used violence to get what he wanted. There was no discussion with him, if you were an Errun who was in his Band, it was his way or a fight in the Ring. And he had this sword, such a dark and large sword, one longer and bigger than any around. It was a curved blade which he refused to clean after he’d killed something with it. That weapon may have been sharp and shiny steal once—a bright silver—but after a decade or two of death, it was stained a heavy gray, the gray of his own blood combined with any Errun who dared to question him.

“And Syndon was smart, I can’t overlook that…maybe the smartest Errun ever. He had battle plans and troop movements. He was a thug, don’t get me wrong about that, but he wasn’t like the wild Errun of old. He didn’t swarm over everything without any reason behind his actions. He always had a plan, and every attack he made against a rival Band or every incursion he made over the Cliffs of Random was meant for some greater goal. Like any true Errun, he loved to kill, but Syndon was also rather brilliant. He usually quenched his thirst for violence with other objectives.”

“B—but how,” Ash had asked. Her voice had been shaking too. That hadn’t been good. “H—how did that make him so bad?”

She’d always had a deep fear of the Errun. No matter how her Poppa Henry had talked of them, whether he’d done it with lots of description or whether he would barely put them into any story he’d been telling, the Errun had always been things Ash had greatly feared.

Their gray skin—something thick and tough, Poppa Henry had once explained it couldn’t be cut, except with the sharpest of swords—and their unblinking big black eyes, Ash had heard of the Errun for as long as she’d heard of Penthya. This one, Pride Syndon, really had sounded like the worst of all.

Another sad smile had taken hold of Poppa Henry’s face. “Maybe I have told you too much,” he’d said. Ash had only had her wide and nervous brown eyes visible since she’d already pulled her covers up even higher. “Maybe you should go to bed because maybe, just maybe, your dumb old Poppa Henry has gone and made you upset.”

“Please,” Ash had whispered back. It had been shocking. Only a second ago, she’d been thinking about how she’d been so ready to never hear another thing. Yet, at that moment, she’d suddenly known she had to have more. “Please, t-tell me how?”

“My Little Ash—”

“Please,” Ash had begged again. “Please tell me.”

“But why do you want to know? This can’t just be because you want to know good.”

“I…I don’t know why,” Ash had said, and it had been the truth. Sure, there had been that question in her mind—the want of knowledge of who was awful so she could file that away as one of the biggest villains of all time, but maybe there had also been so much more. That night, Ash had realized there had been something in her gut, a kind of pull which had let her know this might be important later on. “Please,” she’d sighed, “just tell me, and then you can stay until I go to sleep.”

“I’m not sure,” Poppa Henry had said. “You look frightened already.”

“But if you stay, I’ll be fine,” Ash had smiled. She’d even dropped her covers so her grandfather could see that ready grin. Fake for sure, but it had been ready. “If you stay a while, I won’t have one single nightmare.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Alright,” Poppa Henry had said, “the reason why Syndon being smart made him one of worst ever was because he always had an ulterior motive. Syndon made sure he learned things no Errun before him had ever learned. Syndon knew a bit of the Black, no one knows how he gained that knowledge, but he knew, and then he received even more training, and he was smart enough to use that knowledge so he could attain an even stronger foothold into the darker realms of magic.

“Before Syndon, it was thought the Errun didn’t have the skill to control the Bright or the Black, but after him, everything changed. Syndon is one of the worst because with his mind, anything is possible. He’ll always have some trick up his sleeve, some spell no one is ready for, which will give him the upper hand.”

Ash had filed that fact away. She hadn’t known why she’d had the compulsion to do so, but something in her had spoken and she’d made sure to repeat her Poppa Henry’s words—Syndon knew magic, Syndon was smart—until it had been embedded fully.

“And did he,” she just had to know this too. “Did he kill people? If he was bad, he had to do that, right?”

But Poppa Henry had only leaned over to kiss Ash on the forehead. “No more stories, no more bad parts of Penthya,” he’d said. “Syndon did kill people, but he, too, must be dead. He was smart, and he was huge, but fate catches us all and, in the end, Syndon was taken out by the magic he thought he could control. Let’s not speak of him anymore, okay?”

“Okay,” Ash had said, “but you…you’re going to stay until I fall asleep, right?”

“Scared,” Poppa Henry had asked.

“M-maybe just a little.”

“Well, I am sorry,” Poppa Henry had said. “But trust me. I could have told you about so much worse.”

*Chapter Thirteen*

As fast as it had come, the dream faded. Ash, again, felt only ice. But it had turned heavy.

It was still like water upon her skin, yet—somehow—it also felt as if that water had become a gooey thickness. A word came to her, something from a talk with Peter perhaps, or maybe from a random moment in some random class: Membrane. That was what this felt like. It was as if she was being pulled through a membrane between worlds. Or maybe just an ocean of maple syrup.

But just as Ash was beginning to wonder how thick this membrane could be, everything disappeared. She fell onto something that wasn’t liquid. It was hard, yet also damp and slick, and she held out her hands to break her fall as she collapsed upon it.

Everything hurt, the jarring thud she made causing her way more agony than she’d expected. It was probably because her skin felt like it was on fire. The sensation of ice was gone, but it had left behind an irritation, a scouring which made the slightest touch hurt to no end. Ash got to her feet carefully. She didn’t want her poor hands to be hit by anything else.

“It’ll wear off in a second,” Poppa Henry said.

He was somewhere behind, but Ash had no desire to find him. She was on a road, a long one of huge granite slabs set end to end across the miles, the hundreds of miles, which stretched out before her. It gathered all her attention.

Yet the more she thought about it, the more Ash was sure that here, right now, she’d chosen the wrong word. Road wasn’t right. What she was standing on had to be a highway—something huge, unending, that had been built in what could only be the most depressing world ever.

Dead grass and soggy wet ground ran the length of either side of her. It was filled with dying trees, black vines, and sick gray weeds that lay up against a horizon of tar pitch clouds that roamed a sky that could have been set right before sunrise or just before sunset. Ash was somewhere new, somewhere strange, and though she’d just been pulled through glass, it took a full second for the truth to hit. She wasn’t on Earth, her Earth, anymore.

A gray hue hung in the air. She saw no other color, no soft glow of pink to let her know the sun was about to come up, and no deep red burn to tell her that, actually, the sun was about to set for the night. She had jumped through an old glass and wood cabinet. She’d thrown herself at a piece of furniture that had always just sat in a corner of her dining room and now, all that was around was a granite highway which stretched over the hills and valleys of some other world she was sure would-be awful no matter where in it she stood.

“This isn’t Penthya, is it,” Ash asked. She finally turned to her grandfather. She wanted an answer, yet she realized she really didn’t need one when she saw where her Poppa Henry was.

Once again, he was a reflection in a mirror. But this time, Ash found more than just a mirror when she stared his way. Instead of the continuation of the road she was on, Ash found an end.

It made no sense, but that was what it was. Behind her was a rectangle, a pane of glass which hung on what appeared to be a solid gray wall that rose forever above. Ash felt insignificant beside it.

Rather than holding it in place, this gray wall swallowed the pane of glass her Poppa Henry was in, and though there were other panes she could see, ones down to her left and right, they pretty much looked the same. This wall was where this world stopped, and it was obvious—at least to Ash it was—that all the panes were something extra. Something someone had carved long after that wall had been made.

“This isn’t Penthya,” Ash said again. Her skin was feeling better, and she began to lift an arm. She had to feel the end of a world. “Where am I?”

“Yes,” Poppa Henry said. He pointed to Ash’s fingertips. “This isn’t Penthya, and I wouldn’t do that if I were you. It’s your first time here so this visit will be bad. After your fourth, maybe even sixth, trip onto the Unkindness, you could put your whole hand next to any pane and you would be fine but, for now, I would advise against it. Unless you want your skin to hurt again.”

Ash dropped her arm. Unlike when her grandfather had been a reflection in the mirror in her room, or in that glass and wood cabinet she’d just jumped through, she couldn’t see her own body anywhere in the pane he was in now. She only saw her dining room. At least, what was behind her grandfather was some hurried-up version of it.

Her grandfather was looking down at her, but just to his back Arathus was pacing this way and that at a speed which would have been comical if Ash hadn’t just escaped from her massive jaws and horrible growls. Casten, too, was there, his hands pounding along the backside of her Poppa Henry’s shoulders though it didn’t seem like anything he was doing was letting him enter this world.

Casten was moving as fast as Arathus, the beats he made against the glass a bit pumped up and with an extra urgency Ash didn’t understand. Everything she could see of her dining room, even a passing sparrow she spied through a bit of the broken window Arathus had fallen out of, was in fast forward. Not greatly sped up but done in a hurry so that an Elf and a dog—even a bird—were moving much quicker than normal.

Casten finally stopped pounding on the glass and placed his palm up against it. He said a few words Ash couldn’t hear and then he was gone. Both he and Arathus went out the broken window and disappeared.

But before he vanished, Casten looked back at what he’d jumped through. He nodded and aimed a few fingers at the ground as he mumbled something which caused shattered glass and splintered wood to fly up from wherever they’d fallen. In a second, half a second really, the broken window was fixed, every line and crack sealing tight as Ash watched in wonder. It was so amazing she almost missed it when Casten and Arathus blinked out of existence, the sunlight around them just swallowing them whole.

“He, the Elf, what did he do,” Ash asked.

Poppa Henry turned so she could no longer see his face. “He used magic and bent light,” he said, “but that was after he restored everything he and Arathus destroyed. Probably doesn’t want anyone seeing the damage and getting nervous. Casten has returned to Penthya.”

Using magic and bending light—Casten had done things Ash had often heard about; Arathus and him probably also bending light back at the lake when they’d vanished there. Yet while each was amazing, they had absolutely nothing to do with what she’d just asked.

“No,” Ash clarified, “when he was hitting the glass. He touched it and said something I couldn’t hear. What did he do?”

“Oh,” Poppa Henry said. He sighed heavy too before whirling back around to stare down at her. “Well, if you’re out of any entrance into the Unkindness you can still see the world you left behind, but you can’t catch anything being said unless you happen to be hung up inside one of these panes. I should have expected this.

“Casten knows that, as a Reflection, I can’t bend light, just as he knows that if I want to enter any other world, I am forced to use the Unkindness which is now a danger since the Silver Throne is damaged. Being here was never a good idea, even when it was safe, and…well…he is certain I will try and run to a nearby stream or puddle, or maybe I will try to pull you back into your house from a nearby piece of glass. He doesn’t want that.

“The last day I was in your house—when I walked all up and down it—I was setting up spells so only those of my blood could enter the Unkindness from any reflective surface I found. I made it so someone like Casten couldn’t follow if I took my family away in a hurry, and he is returning the favor. He cast magic. We can’t return to your house the same way we left it.”

“But where are we,” Ash asked.

“You need to go get the blue mirror,” Poppa Henry said. He stared wildly at Ash’s empty hands.

“Poppa Henry, please,” Ash said. “Just tell me where I am?”

Poppa Henry got down on one knee and leaned forward. “My Little Ash,” he said, “I promise I will tell; I promise everything will be fine and you’ll be okay, but first, I need you to go get that mirror. Just…you just be brave like you were back in your room when you ran downstairs and into the kitchen. Go get the mirror. I can feel it, and I could step into it, but the Unkindness and the Kawshun do like to play their tricks. If they sense that my Reflection has moved out of a mirror they can control and is now headed towards something they can’t control, they might swallow it, and we’ll lose it forever.

“That mirror is special. It is the only one I can easily sense whenever we are inside this world. I’ll never get lost trying to step into it like I would with any other pane that is here, so you need to go get it for me. Right now, its magic isn’t great enough for the Unkindness or the Kawshun to realize its importance, but you need to scoop it up before they do see how special it is. I will answer everything when you return.”

“I,” Ash said. She thought back to her fall into this world. How she’d thrown her arms out to catch herself. “What if it’s broken?”

“It isn’t,” Poppa Henry said, “and it never can be. That mirror can withstand virtually anything, so hurry. It’s just a few feet away, right off the highway somewhere, maybe hiding in a tiny clump of mud or dead grass. You scoop it up, but make sure not to place one single foot on the ground. Stay on the road. Simply lean over and grab it, okay?”

“Why can’t I leave the road?”

“I’ll answer that too, but get the mirror first and…and Ash—”

“Yes.”

“If the Silver Throne is damaged as badly as I now know it to be, then the Unkindness is wild. Before—well, before the Kings of Penthya were able to keep its chaos at bay, but now the Unkindness will be able to play any trick it wants, and the one it loves most is what it can do with time. A second, or a minute, here could be an hour or a whole day in our world. You must hurry.”

*Chapter Fourteen*

Ash started to run. The wind of this world was stale and dead, yet still it found ways to whip up into her eyes as she scanned every bit of the black and soggy ground around her. She couldn’t see a thing.

She came to a halt. She’d already run for half a minute, maybe a minute tops, but did that mean an hour, possibly two, had gone by in her world? Did it mean a whole day or even a week?

Most of her didn’t want to believe it. Two worlds—one of which had mirrors…windows…whatever…into the other—they couldn’t have time pass so differently between them, could they?

Yet even when she tried to hope that her Poppa Henry was wrong, the scene of Arathus and Casten came back. How they’d moved in a jerky and fast manner yet how, to them, they’d probably only been taking it slow. Casten occasionally pounding on the doors of that glass and wood cabinet in her dining room, Arathus, too, only walking back and forth every once and a while whenever she got annoyed at their failure.

If, when she’d been so close to the gray, there had been that difference, then what did it mean for her to be further? Did distance even matter? Suddenly, Ash was convinced. She whirled around to hurry back.

A flicker of blue caught her eye. It was her mirror. It lay just off the highway, stuck in the center of a clump of dead and dried weeds, their brown and gray twisting stems wrapped all around it.

Ash again came to a halt. The mirror was a good distance from the road, maybe having slipped out of her hands and bouncing there with the force of her fall. It wasn’t too far. A little out of her reach if she had to stay put, but only a simple bit of retrieval if she could maybe place one foot onto some mud.

But her Poppa Henry had said not to leave the road. In her mad dash, Ash had already passed that mirror right on by, but now it was there, so close yet so far, and she couldn’t pass it by again. She had to go to the edge of the highway and drop to her knees. Maybe if she stretched real far that would be enough?

It didn’t work. Her fingertips brushed lightly over the weeds, but they couldn’t make it all the way. Ash scooted over a last slab of granite. Her Poppa Henry had told her not to step off the highway, but he’d said nothing about putting a couple fingers off it.

Ash anchored her left hand deep into the mud as she leaned even further out. She got the mirror and quickly scooted back. With both her hands, she clutched the mirror tight to her chest before also making sure she’d returned fully to the highway. She never saw the wolf.

It wasn’t like Arathus. It was bigger and dark as night. Darker, really, as its fur was a matted tangle of rich black that only ended at its face where glowing red eyes and a gaping maw of sharp, yellow, teeth flew straight at her.

Ash was still on her knees. She couldn’t escape. The wolf was in the air, snarling mad. Thick foam trailed out of its mouth too as she felt her breath catch in her throat. She had no chance to jump back, her eyes also going so wide with shock, her hands—one still covered in mud—clutching the blue mirror even tighter. That wolf was going to rip her to shreds.

It struck something. What it was, Ash couldn’t tell, but the wolf hit an invisible barrier just as it was about to enter the highway. It was thrown back and fell in a heavy heap right onto the same clump of dead weeds she’d just taken the mirror from.

But as soon as it touched the ground, the wolf was back up. It rolled and jumped again; the same barrier all it found as it smacked into it for a second time.

Ash was safe. But she didn’t want to stick around and see if the wolf might somehow break on through. She rocked back and forth on her knees before jumping to her feet.

She ran to her Poppa Henry, a distance that remained a ways away, but one she covered in three easy steps. She was out of breath with tears of fear, tears of exhaustion, tears of probably many other things she wasn’t sure of, streaming down her face. She held the blue mirror up for her grandfather to see.

“Ash,” Poppa Henry was screaming when she finally caught her breath. “Was it the wolves of the Kawshun? You didn’t…Ash, are you okay?”

Ash took a deep lung full of air. Oddly, all her fear was already starting to fade as she wiped her eyes with her one clean hand before trying to understand what her Poppa Henry was saying.

She’d thought the entirety of this world was the Unkindness. When Poppa Henry had mentioned that word before, she hadn’t been paying as much attention as she should have, but she really had thought that was what he’d meant.

But now she got it. If the wolf was of the Kawshun—was of what was outside—then the Unkindness could only be what this highway was called. It made a sick bit of sense.

This highway could change time from one spot to the next. It had that evil landscape too—the Kawshun—all around it which housed an insane animal that was still flinging itself against an invisible barrier that wouldn’t break no matter how hard it tried to get through. The highway also ran under a dreary sky filled with gray clouds, so what else besides Unkindness fit? Nothing, at least Ash thought nothing could.

“I’m fine,” she said. Her voice trembled only slightly though a few hours ago, maybe just a day ago, such a sight of a black wolf trying to maul her would have sent her into a tailspin of terror. “I leaned over the ground and touched a bit of mud. Sorry.”

“But the wolf didn’t bite you, did it,” Poppa Henry asked. Again, he knelt in his pane so he could see her clearly.

There was so much fear in his voice that Ash was touched. She may have scattered his ashes only a week past, yet something of the real him, of the man she’d once been able to hug, remained. Her Poppa Henry truly was inside of mirrors, or glass, or even the surface of some lakes.

“No, it didn’t bite me,” Ash said. She showed her mud-caked left hand to her grandfather before leaning down to wipe it on the road. “Just got myself messy, but I can get clean in a second.”

“Don’t,” Poppa Henry howled. His voice made Ash instantly freeze. “Use your jeans or your shirt, but not the Unkindness, not there!”

“I’ll get them dirty,” Ash said. Her hand hovered inches from the road, but she wasn’t going to move it anymore. She tilted her head slightly. “I don’t think I’ll hurt the Unkindness. It’s only mud.”

“No, it isn’t.” Poppa Henry was still on his knees, but his hands were pressed hard against the glass he was in, the pane there rippling and bulging as if he was about to step on through. “It isn’t just mud, my Little Ash. It’s the home of the wolves.

“You can’t step off the Unkindness because besides a few of the Riders, no living person can touch the Fields of Kawshun without the wolves knowing instantly. It is their territory, and you have a bit of it on you. That means the wolves have your scent. But they can’t get to you because the Unkindness keeps them away—the highway itself keeps them out. But if you put a bit of the Kawshun onto this road the barrier won’t work anymore. Mess up your jeans, or ruin your shirt, but don’t touch the road. Don’t let the wolves get the rest of you.”

Ash stood and wiped her hand on her legs. She was so glad she’d only rocked back and forth to get to her feet, and she carefully rubbed at the mud until only a little remained beneath her fingernails. She couldn’t get that bit off.

Poppa Henry sighed. “I’m sorry if I’m scaring you,” he said. She showed him her hand, front and back. “But this is not Penthya, and this is not a good place. I prayed I would get to you, to everyone, just after you’d scattered my ashes; that I would bring all of you here so your father and mother could look after you, but I didn’t know. I didn’t count on the Silver Throne being damaged.

“I went to check on the mirrors into Penthya, the ones giving access into places as close to Castle Watch as anyone can ever get, and I never believed the trip, only ten minutes on the Unkindness, would take so much time in our world. My Little Ash, I shouldn’t have brought you here all by yourself, can you ever forgive me?”

But Ash wasn’t listening. After her Poppa Henry had casually mentioned one thing, a luminous smile had broken out all over her face. As he got to his feet, Ash couldn’t keep the elation from spreading.

“There really is a castle called Watch,” she said. She had expected such a thing since coming to understand that her Poppa Henry was now a Reflection, since hearing Casten mention Penthya as well, yet listening to her grandfather as he spoke of Watch as if it were around a nearby corner…it was almost too wonderful to bear.

Poppa Henry smiled back. He even laughed before he took a step forward and disappeared—the pane of glass on the gray wall left empty.

“Of course, Watch is real,” he said. His voice was now coming from the blue mirror. Ash had kept it turned so it had faced only him, but when he spoke, she flipped it and saw him, or at least his eyes, staring back at her. “You didn’t think I would tell you a story that wasn’t true, did you?”

Ash had to keep smiling. “I never thought about it,” she sighed. “I always wanted Penthya and Watch, and Wind Weavers and Wiggans, to be real. I wanted that so bad, and I didn’t dare think about them being false. But I…I also didn’t like to think that they were real…like, really real.”

“Why not?”

“Because it would have been too much. I would have known every story you’d ever told was out there somewhere, and I couldn’t get to them.”

“Well, you will get to them, and you’ll do it soon,” Poppa Henry said. “You’re going to go to Penthya and Castle Watch, my Little Ash, you’ll meet Wind Weavers and Centaurs, more Elves and Dwarves than you can count, but first, we have to go get everyone else. I’m already feeling where there might be some mirrors and waterways we can use. I will just have to leave for a few seconds to confirm.”

Ash looked up from the mirror. She took in the bits of the Unkindness stretching out for miles and miles across the wet ground and hills her grandfather kept calling the Fields of Kawshun. This highway was so large, with so many slabs, and she didn’t think she could do it. She could run if she had to, but if her Poppa Henry needed her to make it to the other side, or maybe to some mirrors a few hills over, she was sure it would take months.

“But how can we get anywhere in this place,” she asked. “It’s so far.”

“No,” Poppa Henry said, “it isn’t. Every mirror on the Unkindness is generally located near to how that mirror is placed in whatever other world it also is in. The mirrors in your house should be close to the mirrors or puddles which are near to us in this world. We can get to Peter, or to your mother and father, in a second. I just have to find the few spots that haven’t been affected by Casten’s magic.”

“But Poppa Henry—” Ash said.

“Yes?”

“Didn’t you say you could get lost? I thought the blue mirror was the only one you could feel with ease. What if you can’t get back?”

Poppa Henry nodded. “So smart,” he smiled. “I will get lost checking on things, but I won’t ever get lost in getting back to you. I might stumble about, but I charmed this mirror and I can always feel my own magic. It may get muted the further I am from it, but I won’t ever lose you.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“But why go by yourself,” Ash asked. “If it’s not far, why not let me walk with you?”

“Because no matter how close things are, we really do need to hurry. My Reflection can race across this world in seconds.”

“Oh, okay, but—”

“Yes?”

“You just go extra fast. I don’t want to be alone for long.”

*Chapter Fifteen*

Ash stared from the mirror to the road at her feet, and then from that to the wolf still running at the invisible barrier. That thing didn’t want to stop. It would hit the barrier, red eyes flaring, and then it would fall back onto wet and gray earth as it rolled and regained its footing only to once more run at what it had just bounced off of.

It hit the barrier again and came to a stop. A sound, a dark and sickening howl, made its ears perk up. Instead of charging, the beast panted heavy before turning its head.

Ash followed its gaze. In that direction, the Unkindness dipped low and sunk into a short valley. She couldn’t see anything. Far in the distance, the valley rose back up, but there was nothing else…until two dots appeared. They were quickly followed by four more, those four soon becoming eight, and ten, and then too many dots to count. The nearby wolf was about to receive some major reinforcements.

“Poppa Henry,” Ash said. Actually, she pleaded with her blue mirror. It just had to show her something other than herself. “Where are you?”

But her own eyes and forehead, and the short tufts of her brown and red streaked hair, were all she could see. The dots were closer, over the other side of the valley and zeroing in on the wolf nearby. It was returning their howls. However, it was also making a different sort of noise, still a kind of low and sick moan, yet slightly off in its tenor so that the notes in its throat were even lower and higher, softer yet sharper than the rest of the pack. Ash couldn’t be sure, but when she finally took her eyes off her mirror, and paused to listen, she thought she almost had it.

The howls were different in some way that made her think they were words. The wolves were talking.

“My Little Ash,” Poppa Henry said from the mirror. “Are you okay?”

Ash looked at her hands; her grandfather now all she could see. “There are more wolves. I got scared.”

Poppa Henry took a step back, the tiny glimpse she had of his eyes and forehead changing so she could see the rest of his face. He looked concerned, yet relieved.

“It’s okay,” he said, “kind of scary—I know—but okay. Remember, the Unkindness will keep the wolves out so long as no Kawshun gets onto it. You don’t slip and let any of the dirt on your pants get onto one of those slabs, and we’ll be fine. But, and prepare yourself—and you’ll need to be brave yet again—you’re going to have to run past those things to get to your brother.”

“But—” Ash asked, “but what about dad? What about mom?”

She was glad she could go to Peter. Still, she couldn’t help but to also wonder why Poppa Henry didn’t want to get an adult, just someone, anyone, who could probably do way better than her in places like the Way of Unkindness or the Fields of Kawshun.

Poppa Henry shook his head. “I looked in on them and I didn’t see anything except worry. Your mother’s car was off the road, just a block from your house, and it could have been car trouble, but I’m not so sure.

“I won’t take you back there, and as for your father, well—well, his office, when I stepped into a reflection on the computer screen on his desk, everything was in disarray. I heard people screaming and…but I couldn’t let more time pass to be certain.

“If others came into your world, then they’ve already taken your folks and next they will grab the first beam of light they can and return to Castle Watch. That means both your mother and father are already in Penthya. It means we can’t help them, but it also means we have a bit of luck on our side. If everyone is over there, we can get to Peter before anyone else. A minute for them, even if they simply stop to throw your parents to the ground, should take an hour or more for us, and we can bring your brother back without any hassle. The two of you can help me fix everything.”

Ash gulped. She thought only of Arathus’s open maw and the way Casten had held his sword. Her mother and father could be in terrible danger. She couldn’t let the same happen to Peter.

In an instant, getting to her brother seemed like the only option she could take, but she had no idea what would happen next. If she went to a mirror and stepped on through, she could only bring Peter back here. How could either of them, on this terrible highway, do anything about where their mother and father were?

“How can we fix this,” Ash asked. She held her mirror right before her face so she wouldn’t miss a thing her Poppa Henry might say.

“We’re going to go to Penthya,” Poppa Henry began. “In this form, I truly can’t bend light, so we’re going to get there by using this road. After that, you will have to bring me to Castle Watch and present my Reflection so I can do what Casten and Arathus wanted to do in your house. I will stand Trial.”

Ash blinked hard and dropped her mirror to her side. She’d wanted so badly to catch every part of the explanation that would let her know how her mother and her father, how even she and her brother, would get out of all this strange and wonderful—yet also rather terrible—ordeal they were in. But what her Poppa Henry had just said really hadn’t sounded good at all.

“But” Ash cried. She pulled the mirror back to her face too, her grandfather looking none too pleased. “But from what the Elf and the dog…Trial sounded like it would—like it would take your life!”

Poppa Henry shook his head again. “I told you to get this mirror from the kitchen so I could keep an eye on you.” His words were cold. He sounded way worse than any nearby wolf. “Even if I have to step away, that doesn’t mean I need to look at your dirty jeans when I come back. I can’t protect you if I can’t see you. Don’t drop me.”

“I won’t,” Ash promised. “I was…just…Trial…I heard the way Casten made it sound. Shouldn’t we stay away?”

Poppa Henry softened. “Oh, my Little Ash…no more running. We go get Peter, and then you both will take me to Penthya for whatever is waiting.”

“But why would you—” Ash tried to ask.

“Because I need to do better,” Poppa Henry sighed. He took a step forward too—made it so his eyes and forehead were once more all that Ash could see. “I truly thought I could get you to safety, every single one of you. Ash, this highway…it—the Way of Unkindness was built long ago by a man of incredible power, and he connected it, all of it, to every world he ever visited, and trust me, he visited a lot of places. The Unkindness could have taken you and Peter somewhere…anywhere…you could have hidden for forever while I went to Penthya.

“But I was wrong. I thought I had more time, but I was wrong, and now your parents, possibly even Peter, will stand Trial for me unless we act. We need to go and check on your brother, and if he is fine, then the two of you will bring me to Castle Watch where I will deal with whatever I need to deal with.”

“But—” Ash said. She had to ask a few more things. “But why can’t you go to Castle Watch right now? Don’t they have mirrors? Can’t you pop in?”

“Not anymore,” Poppa Henry sighed. “Before I thought it was the Seal which kept me out. But with it being weakened, I rechecked the accesses and still they’re blocked. I can finally peek inside any world I want, but Watch remains barred, and now, with my Reflection having been seen, I am sure it is even more protected.

“There is no way I could appear in any mirror anywhere near to that castle, or anywhere close to the heart of Penthya. I could, maybe, appear in a lake somewhere along the outskirts, near to the Cliffs of Random perhaps, but unless someone walks me right into Watch, there is nothing I can do.”

“But you came out of a mirror,” Ash protested. “I saw you. Can’t you walk into Watch on your own?”

“No,” Poppa Henry said. “I did step out of a mirror, but I only did that for a while. The larger the surface the more time I will have, but if I don’t take a life to replace my own, then sooner or later, the body I make will die.”

Ash looked back down the Unkindness. Some wolves had separated from the main pack. They were sitting next to a small creek just a little way from where she stood.

But those wolves were not doing much else. Instead of pacing back and forth, or attacking the barrier, they were merely watching as if they’d been sent to make sure she didn’t escape.

Ash returned her attention to her grandfather. “So, I have to go past the wolves—then I can get to Peter?”

“Yes,” Poppa Henry said, “you need to run a bit down the Unkindness, where it dips into that nearby valley. There is a puddle just off the highway there, one that’s far enough from the mirror Casten charmed, and once you’re there, I’ll step out of this mirror and into it, and all you’ll have to do is jump like before. I’ll still catch you.”

“Just jump,” Ash said, “yet again.” But then she flicked her eyes towards the wolves, the nearby ones and the ones much further away. “Won’t they get me?”

Poppa Henry smiled. “You’ll go fast, it will be okay. Besides, one of them would have to be on that side of the Unkindness. The puddle is on your right, they are on your left, and it would take them too long to circle. You’ll be fine.”

Once more, Ash took in all the wolves. The main force was still down where the first one had been seen, while nearby those others were still just staring her way. It seemed like every wolf was accounted for. But she wasn’t sure.

The one who’d first come at her had had eyes darker than the eyes of every other wolf. Having been mere inches from them, she was positive those eyes had been darker, yet now she couldn’t find them. Where had that one gone?

“What about the water over there,” she asked. She shifted her gaze and the blue mirror to the creek at her side. Yes, there were those nearby wolves there, but it was also so close. “Could I use it? You could grab me before anything attacks.”

“No,” Poppa Henry said. Ash turned the mirror back to her. “That water only leads to your neighborhood, to a small creek which is there. It is also way too affected by what Casten charmed, so the puddle in the valley is our best option. It will take us close to your school, and you’ll be fine. No wolf will get you.”

Ash clutched the blue mirror tight. “No wolf will get me,” she said. She just wished she sounded as confident as her grandfather. “But what are they?”

“Lost souls,” Poppa Henry said. “They are those who die, and come here, yet only get confused and never find a way out. They soon become Wolf. They become angry and hungry and savage, they become beasts who only want to make others into what they already are. If they take you, they don’t kill you, they just endlessly drag you until you are so deep inside the Kawshun you have no choice but to become what they are. They make you into them.”

“I become wolf?”

“Exactly, stepping off the Unkindness gives them your scent, and unless you drink from the Pool, that scent stays with them forever. Run hard, my Little Ash, yet be careful, and get to that puddle.”

Ash gripped her mirror even tighter—until thick blue plastic groaned in her hands. “Run hard,” she said, “should be easy.”

But as soon as she took her first step, the wolves pounced. The ones nearby stopped their casual watching and began to throw themselves at the barrier. Ash had already decided that the ones further along the Unkindness were staying there in the hopes that her reaching over to grab that blue mirror might give them an advantage, and such a thought was only proved correct when she began to run. Those nearby wolves hit the barrier with a fury, but they didn’t hit it half as hard as their brethren did just a few feet away.

Those picked up the tempo. They’d been attacking the Unkindness quite forcefully, but when Ash took off, they aimed themselves at the highway with such intensity she could feel the violence of their blows. It tripped her up.

And maybe that was the point. As Ash reached the spot where the dip into the valley began—the Unkindness sloping down at a gentle yet slick angle—maybe causing her to fall was exactly what the wolves had in mind.

Ash could only wonder if they were smart enough to try and make her get the Kawshun onto the highway. After all, some of it was still on her pants, and underneath her nails.

The wolves slammed into the barrier again. They were back as one, their assault the most vicious yet.

Ash skidded on granite slabs as the gentle slope suddenly became a slick danger made even worse by the force of the wolves. She fell to her knees, glad only for the fact that when she’d cleaned her hands, she’d at least been smart enough to do it along her upper thighs.

But, still, she bounced. To her horror, she almost careened right off the Unkindness.

There was a gleam of red. Suddenly, the empty parts of the Kawshun held eyes darker than anything from the pack to her left. The first wolf was on the other side.

“Poppa Henry,” Ash whispered. She brought the mirror close to her lips. “It’s here.”

“What is,” Poppa Henry asked. Ash didn’t bother to look at him. She wasn’t ready to let the wolf to her right escape from her sight.

“A wolf—the wolf—the one who jumped at me before. It’s on the other side of the Unkindness.”

Poppa Henry let out a thick stream of air that may have held some harsh curses laced underneath. “They can run fast, and they’re smart,” he sighed, “too smart. I should have figured they might do this. But too many years away from all sorts of magic, too many years and my brain becomes mush! I used to know every world so well nothing could surprise me!”

Ash stayed where she was. She hardly breathed as she looked only at the wolf with the dark red eyes. “What should I do?”

“Keep running,” Poppa Henry said, “I’ll go on ahead. I’m sure I have a good lock on the puddle now. I won’t get lost and when you find it you jump, but this time, I will catch you in a hurry. I will grab you as soon as your toes touch water.”

Ash didn’t reply. She still wasn’t staring at her Poppa Henry and, without looking, she wasn’t sure if he was there or not. But she nodded at his words as she got to her feet. She took off with only a vague hint of dread taking root throughout her soul.

There remained a great possibility that her grandfather wouldn’t be there when she needed him, but Ash already knew well she didn’t care. She was terrified of the wolf, but she wanted so badly to get out of this place that any fear which would have kept her still in her own world vanished. Maybe she’d finally reached a point where she could, continually, be brave?

The wolf sped up and, as it passed, Ash followed its gaze. She finally caught sight of a small dark circle of black that rested on the far side of the valley.

Just before the Unkindness began to ascend a nice and gentle hill a puddle lay in a depressing conglomeration of dead grass, and dried weeds, and the wolf was going to get there before she did. It was tired, its thick tongue lay half out of its mouth, but Ash knew it would beat her. There was no way she was getting off the Unkindness.

Something happened. Without even thinking about it, Ash got level with the wolf. She was at its side. She didn’t know how it was possible, but with a heart feeling as if it would burst at any second, she ran faster then she’d ever run in her entire life. Soon she was even ahead of the wolf by the merest of inches.

Ash launched herself into the air. The wolf was right behind, nipping at her heels, but again, she didn’t care. She had beaten it, and only the puddle she was about to hit gave her some concern. It held not a trace of her grandfather.