The Journal of Curious Letters Read online

  Out of the corners of his eyes, Tick saw a blur of yellowed skin and vicious claws. He felt an icy touch on his elbow. Before anything could take hold, Tick shot the Windbike up and away from the sea of disgusting monsters.

  A storm of fangen took flight in pursuit.

  ~

  Paul had absolutely no idea what happened.

  His mind had been fading, shutting down into a blissful state of unconsciousness so he didn’t have to feel the excruciating instant of pain when his body smacked into the ground. But everything changed in a sudden rush of intense cold and wetness.

  Water engulfed him, filling his lungs as he instinctively sucked in air at the shock of impact. As he felt his feet slam into the river bottom—hard enough to almost break his legs—he sputtered and coughed, his instincts trying to prevent him from taking another breath and killing himself. The next instant, he felt a massive arm grab him around the chest and pull him through the water.

  But not up—not toward air.

  The arm pulled him to the side, skimming his body along the sandy river bottom.

  Paul had one moment to wonder if he was dead before everything grew very dark.

  ~

  Tick shot into the open air away from the castle, his blood freezing at the sight of countless fangen everywhere. The air was full of them, defying gravity as they flew with their pale, weak-looking wings. More crawled and ran across the grounds, an endless army of ants. Not knowing where to go or what to do, Tick frantically searched the sky and the ground for any glimpse of his friends.

  A flash of red far below caught his eye. One of the Windbikes, in the river.

  And no sign of anyone near it.

  His heart sinking faster than he could ever fly, Tick slammed on the handlebars and catapulted toward the ground.

  ~

  After swimming under the thick stone arch from which the slow-moving river exited the Lemon Fortress, Mothball kicked with all of her might toward the surface, dragging both Sofia and Paul in her arms. Desperate for air, she could only imagine how her two little friends were doing, if they still lived.

  Her head broke through the surface with a loud splash; she sucked in the most refreshing breath of her life. Even as she did so, she pulled up with her arms, bringing Paul and Sofia’s faces above the water line.

  Mothball’s heart almost leaped out of her chest when both of the kids coughed and sputtered for air. With an inexplicable laugh, she dragged them to the side of the river where she helped them climb out and onto a wide stone walkway. Paul fell over, spitting and sucking, spitting and sucking. Sofia seemed better, taking in slow, deep breaths as she looked around, her eyes wide.

  They stood next to the river in a long, dark tunnel that delved in one direction for what seemed like eternity, no end in sight. On the other side, the river disappeared under a thick stone wall, flowing outside the castle wall. Next to that stood the huge wooden doors they’d seen from the outside. They were still halfway open and letting in enough light to prevent them from being in complete darkness.

  “This is where those creatures came from,” Sofia whispered.

  “Best be glad they’re out there, now,” Mothball muttered. She pulled the Barrier Wand out of the huge belt loop where she’d stuck it for safekeeping.

  Paul had recovered enough to stand up, his chest still heaving as he fought to catch his breath. “What happened to Tick and Sato?”

  As if in answer, they heard Tick shout from outside the doors. “Mothball!”

  His Windbike had flown down from somewhere above; he hovered just outside, Sato on the back.

  “Wait a minute,” Paul said. “I thought Sato was driving the bike.”

  “Quick!” Mothball yelled, ignoring Paul. “Get in ’ere!”

  She saw Tick obey immediately, shooting the Windbike through the narrow space between the half-open doors. Even as he did, Mothball grabbed the long ropes hanging on the inside of the huge slabs of wood that served as handles to pull them closed.

  “Help me!” she yelled.

  As the others moved to her side and pulled with her, Mothball looked outside. Just before the doors slammed shut with a loud boom, she saw the hideous sight of countless fangen charging directly for them.

  Chapter

  49

  ~

  The Golden Button

  Mothball pulled an enormous plank of wood down into the slot that locked the double doors. “Won’t hold ’em for long, bet yer best buttons.” She looked at Tick, who’d parked the Windbike and now hugged his friends like they’d just won the Cricket tourney. “Save the celebratin’ if you don’t mind. Here.” She held up the Barrier Wand, gesturing for him to take it.

  “What?” Tick stammered. “Here? Now?”

  “’Less you’d be wantin’ to invite the fangen in first.”

  Tick frowned. “But I thought we had to get back to the battleground.”

  Something heavy slammed into the doors from the other side, followed by a thunder of heavy thumps and nerve-grinding scratches. The fangen wanted in.

  “Only if we’d be wantin’ Master George to grab us in a few hours,” Mothball said. “No time for that now. It’s up to you.”

  Without waiting for a response, she tossed the Wand in Tick’s direction.

  ~

  Tick caught the long golden rod with both hands, scared to death he’d drop it and break it. He hefted it in his hands, surprised at how light it felt.

  “So . . . I just have to adjust the controls and poof—we’re safe?” he asked Mothball.

  “Be quick about it—and make no mistakes on the dials or we may end up in the wrong end of a beluga whale, we will. Once you’re set, we all need to be touchin’ it, then ya simply push the button.”

  A crashing thunk made them all jump. Tick saw the head of a huge axe embedded in the wood of the right door. With an ear-piercing squeal, the huge sliver of metal was yanked back out. A second later it landed again, throwing a shower of splinters all over the stone walkway. It disappeared and a red eye peeked through the rough slit, followed by a gurgly scream.

  “Uh, Tick,” Sofia said. “Maybe we should, I don’t know, hurry?” She threw every ounce of sarcasm she could muster into the last word.

  “Yeah, man,” Paul agreed. “Giddyup.”

  “They’re almost through . . .” Sato said, his voice taut.

  “Okay,” Tick whispered as he knelt down on the stone, holding the Barrier Wand in front of him delicately, like he held in his hands the most priceless artifact of the ancient Egyptians. “Here goes nothing.”

  More booms and cracks sounded from the doors. More cackles and deranged giggling. The left door started to buckle, like the fangen had just hit it with a huge battering ram.

  “Take your time, Tick,” Sofia muttered.

  Tick ignored her, closing his eyes and bringing up the image of what Master George had shown him back at the Bermuda Triangle complex. He raised his mind’s eye to look at the Doohickey, the uppermost control.

  “Okay,” he said, opening his eyes to focus on the real thing. While holding the rod with his left hand, he reached forward and turned the Doohickey three clicks to the right. He paused again, knowing it was better to get it right the first time instead of rushing and having to start all over again. He envisioned the Whatchamacallit, then the Thingamajig, slowly making the appropriate adjustments. He moved his attention to the next control down.

  An ear-splitting crack made him yelp, looking up to see a huge seam had split the right door into almost two complete sections. Several yellowy arms squirmed through the opening, grasping and clawing to pull the pieces apart.

  Tick, spurred into a fear-induced sense of focus, went back to work on the Barrier Wand.

  ~

  “The water ruined the ruddy Sound Slicers, no doubt,” Mothball said as she ran forward to the doors, picking up a huge splinter of wood that had fallen inward onto the stone floor. She immediately got to work, whacking and stabbing any sign of the
diseased yellow skin that squeezed through the large crack. With every shriek and scream of anger, she doubled her efforts.

  Paul joined her, finding a smaller but sharper stick. Without a word to each other, they worked in tandem—Paul fighting the lower portion, Mothball the upper.

  They only had to buy Tick a little more time.

  ~

  Sofia felt rooted to the ground, screaming inside with helplessness. Sato stood beside her, frantically looking around as if trying to find something to fight.

  “What happened out there?” Sofia asked him.

  Sato looked at her, his eyes drained of the hatred and mistrust he’d shown back at Master George’s place. “He saved my life.” Sato pointed at Tick.

  “He did?”

  Sato nodded.

  “That’s—” Sofia shrieked as something grabbed her ankle. She looked down to see a slick yellowed hand gripped around her, attached to one of the fangen, crawling out of the river. Behind it she saw another’s head pop out of the water.

  Before she could react, Sato kicked down with his foot, breaking the miserable thing’s hand with a hideous crunch. It squealed and splashed back into the water, just as Sato got down on his knees and shot the other one with a muted thump from his Sound Slicer. The creature disappeared into the black water.

  Sofia reached down and helped Sato back to his feet, then dragged him away from the river, seeing no signs of other creatures—for the moment.

  The breaches in the doors were cracking wider, almost big enough for one of the monsters to squeeze through. A sickly arm reached inside, a glimmering silvery globe clutched in its hand. Sofia was about to shout a warning when Mothball whacked the thing’s arm with her huge stick.

  The tall woman turned around, her face on fire with rage, yelling at the others. “Run away from the door! All of you!”

  ~

  Paul didn’t argue, turning immediately to run down the dark tunnel. He grabbed Tick’s arm as he passed, half dragging him along since Tick was still focused intently on the Barrier Wand.

  “Come on!” Paul yelled. “We need to get out of their reach or they’re going to fry us for dinner. Just a little farther in!”

  Tick finally snapped his concentration and broke into a full run behind Paul. “I’ve almost got it,” he said, panting. “Just one more dial.”

  The last word had barely crossed his lips when a horrible explosion of cracking wood boomed and echoed down the dark stone tunnel. The silver ball had been some kind of bomb.

  The breach was complete.

  ~

  Tick tried to ignore the noise of screaming and howling fangen pouring through the shattered doors behind them. Knowing he had no time left, he quit running and knelt down again, bringing the Barrier Wand up to his eye level. “Everyone come here!” he shouted. “Grab the Wand!”

  He focused on the bottom dial—the Whattzit. He turned it to the correct position, then glanced over the other six controls, verifying each of them one last time. The other Realitants had gathered around him, leaning over to grasp the Wand in different locations, being careful not to cover up or bump the dials and switches.

  The nightmarish sounds of the onrushing fangen grew louder. Sato used his free hand to shoot with his Sound Slicer, keeping some of them at bay, but Tick knew it was only a matter of time.

  “Everyone ready?” Tick shouted over the cackles and war cries of the fangen and the teeth-jolting thumps of Sato’s lone weapon.

  “Do it!” Mothball answered for everyone. “Be quick about it!”

  Unable to prevent a smile from spreading across his face, Tick pushed the golden button on top of the Barrier Wand.

  Nothing happened.

  The haunting chorus of horrible sounds continued. Tick and the others were still trapped inside the Lemon Fortress.

  Tick pushed the button again, then again, triggering his finger up and down several times.

  Nothing.

  “What’s wrong, Tick?” Sofia yelled.

  “Dude, hurry up!” Paul added.

  Tick ignored them, studying the controls to see if he’d made a mistake. One by one, he quickly scanned them, matching their positions with the image burned inside his mind. Everything was right.

  He pushed the button again, with the same result.

  No, no, no, he thought. Not after all we just went through. You will work. You will work!

  “Tick!” Sofia yelled, swatting him on the shoulders in panic.

  Tick could hear the creatures coming, could feel them.

  Focusing, funneling the surroundings out of his mind and heart, Tick gripped the Barrier Wand, staring at it like he could melt it with his eyes. They’d come so far . . .

  He felt that strange reservoir of heat deep in his stomach bubbling to life. He’d tapped into it twice before and now he reached for it eagerly, letting the warmth flood through his entire body, filling him with certainty.

  Tick shouted into the air, louder than he’d ever shouted anything in his whole life.

  “YOU WILL WORK YOU STUPID PIECE OF HUNK-A-JUNK!”

  He closed his eyes and pushed the button one last time.

  Tick instantly felt a tingle shoot down his back and the world around him fell into dead silence.

  Chapter

  50

  ~

  The Calm after the Storm

  What do you mean, it worked?”

  Mistress Jane glared at Frazier Gunn, who knelt before her chair by the window, like a criminal begging for his life. Surprisingly, Jane felt more intrigued than angry about this new development. Maybe she would let Gunn live after all.

  “I don’t know how it happened, Mistress,” Gunn grumbled, sweat covering his face. “The Realitants disappeared and took the Barrier Wand with them.”

  Jane reached over and lifted the Chi’karda Drive from where she’d placed it on the stone ledge of the windowsill. “How, exactly, could they do that when I’m holding the heart of the Wand in my hands?”

  “George must’ve winked them out somehow.” Gunn kept his eyes fixed on the floor.

  “Impossible,” Jane said immediately. “I have firsthand reports that George’s Wand broke in half. Plus, you’re the one who said their plan was to go back to the ancient Plague battlefield and get winked hours from now.”

  “Then how did—”

  “SILENCE!” Jane had endured this stupid man for quite long enough. “Leave me. I don’t want to see you for a very long time.” She dismissed him with a wave of her hand.

  “Yes, Mistress.”

  Jane watched him get to his feet and shuffle away, murmuring incessantly his thanks for her gracious decision to let him live. He was lucky—losing the Wand was a major loss; its parts and mechanisms were equally as important as the Chi’karda Drive itself—but she had much more important things flying through the recesses of her brilliant mind.

  How had they done it? How had they manipulated the Chi’karda powerfully enough without the Drive? And in the heart of her personal fortress at that? Did it have something to do with the twisted version of the mysterious force that existed in the Thirteenth Reality? Jane tapped a sharp fingernail against her lips, thinking.

  Did one of those bratty kids have some kind of special power over the Chi’karda? Many questions indeed.

  The implications were vast, the possibilities endless.

  Despite the setback, Mistress Jane smiled.

  ~

  To any outside observer, it would have seemed as though Tick and his friends had just won the Super Bowl, the World Series, and the NBA Championship in one fell swoop. Having been through so much, and after having hundreds of creepy yellow fangen within inches of tearing them to pieces, winking away to complete safety seemed reason enough to jump up and down, screaming and hugging and cheering and then to start all over again.

  “What took you so long!” Paul yelled, whacking Tick on the back with a huge smile on his face.

  “I was trying to decide if I wanted to take
you or leave you behind,” Tick replied, grinning.

  They celebrated inside a room very similar to the one they’d left in the Bermuda Triangle, though a much smaller version—a couple of couches, a chair, a cold brick fireplace. A single window was placed directly across from the fireplace, and it looked out upon a dry palette of colors—oranges, reds, browns.

  Tick brought his giddiness back to reason and walked over to get a better look at the view. Beyond their room was a huge drop-off that led to a brown strip of river far below. Sheer walls of striated rock rose up from the valley on all sides, stretching in all directions as far as Tick could see. This was the satellite location Master George had said he’d send them to?

  It was a canyon. No, it was the canyon.

  “Are we inside the Grand Canyon?” he asked to no one in particular.

  “That we are,” Mothball answered. “This big crack’s brimming over with Chi’karda, it is.”

  “Then where are Master George and Rutger?” Sofia asked.

  A fallen mood filled the room like a sluggish oil spill, and no one said a word.

  ~

  Master George worked furiously on his Barrier Wand, welding and wiring and hammering. He and Rutger had managed to repel the attack from Mistress Jane with an odd assortment of weapons, but not before the creatures had smashed his Wand in half with an axe. At least they’d missed severing the Chi’karda Drive.

  Knowing his deadline to pull the Realitants out of the Thirteenth Reality was only a couple of hours away, he wiped the sweat off his brow and doubled his efforts.

  “Master George!” Rutger yelled from the other room, followed by the quick series of heavy thumps that always marked the little man running on his short legs.

  “What is it, Rutger?” Master George asked, annoyed. “Can’t you see I’m under considerable duress?”

  His friend stopped in the doorway, panting like he’d just run three miles. “Master George!”