Juniper Berry (6 page)

It was the noise that brought Juniper to her feet. They slurped the air like soup, except the pitch grew and grew, turning the air into a mighty wind down their throats.

Without thinking, Juniper ran into the room. “What are you doing?!”

And that was the moment she knew real fear.

Her mother turned to her, her face nearly melting, the skin bubbling from beneath, and screamed at her in a voice of utmost horror. “Get ooouuuutttt!” The words sounded strangled, deep, like a straining and damaged foghorn. Her mother's eyes were no longer her own; they bulged grotesquely, yet the irises shrank away. Her mouth drooped and sagged as the air of the balloon found its home inside her body, her skin turbulent like boiling water. Bestial moans crept from across the table. There, her father's head was leaning back, eyes to the ceiling as if satisfied, yet his legs shook violently and his body twitched. Not once did he turn to his daughter.

The veins in her neck pulsating viciously, Mrs. Berry screamed again, “Get ooouuuutttt!” And Juniper fled the room.

Chapter 6

A
FTER A NIGHT OF LITTLE SLEEP
and much fear, Juniper warily descended the stairs. Already, something was clearly out of place. She smelled the wafting scent of eggs and heard the sizzle of a skillet upon the stove. She made her way through the house and entered the kitchen on an orange-skied morning. Her mother and father were at the table eating breakfast, with nary a word passing between them. But there was no doubt Juniper entered a room humming with plenty of good cheer.

“Wonderful to see you're up,” her mother said. “We've saved you some.” She pushed a plate of scrumptious scrambled eggs and sausage toward a dumbstruck Juniper. “Eat up, eat up, eat up,” she cooed.

Confused and cautious, Juniper took a seat, closely eyeing her parents. They seemed pleasant enough, not a glint of shame or guilt in their actions from the previous night. Mrs. Berry was smiling and Mr. Berry was whistling; he even gave a wary Kitty some eggs, something he never did, saying it was good for her coat. Did they even remember what had happened only hours earlier? Now, in direct opposition to their previous night's state, they were filled with energy, their skin shining, their bodies humming. The only thing that betrayed all of this was their eyes. The glow Juniper remembered seeing in them as a young child had nearly faded completely. Was this just yet another version of her parents?

“This is delicious,” Mr. Berry told his wife. “This is just what I needed today. So much work to get done. I finally know how to tackle this character. I can hear his voice as clear as my own. It's as if he's pushing and shoving to get out. This is going to be my greatest work yet. I just know it.” He clapped his hands, then pumped his fist into the air a bit awkwardly.

Juniper turned to her mother, who began to speak quite merrily. “Well, the work we do, you have to start your day like this.” She scooped some eggs onto a piece of toast and took a large bite. “Rehearsals start at noon. I have absolutely no fear anymore. I'm sure they'll be heaping accolades upon me in no time. I can already hear the whispers. Listen.” And everyone went silent, even Kitty.

“Award talk. I'm hearing award talk,” Mr. Berry said, hand cupping his ear and grinning.

“I know, for the both of us.”

“It's always nice to suddenly wake up with a new perspective on things. The heaviness of life is gone. I feel light. It's like I'm a new man.”

“Everyone should be as lucky as us.”

“I can't sit around anymore,” Mr. Berry said, rising from the table. “Let's get this day started.”

“Yes, let's.”

And Mrs. Berry joined her husband in exiting the room, leaving Juniper sitting at the table, speechless.

She didn't know how to respond to any of this. She wanted to ask questions about everything; she wanted to say,
Aren't you going to explain what it was that happened last night?
But she knew she would be wasting her breath. Either they would have denied it ever occurred or they had already chosen to believe it never actually did. And maybe it didn't happen at all, not to the two people in front of her. With her face flushed and her eyes still puffy and red from a restless night, she knew; it was going to be up to her to set things right.

She had to get back outside and explore that tree.

But first she would have to push through another day of lessons with Mrs. Maybelline.

It turned out to be a test day—something Juniper completely forgot in all the perplexities taking over her life. Not that it really mattered; Juniper was an excellent student, and there hadn't been a test yet that she had failed to ace. In fact, sitting alone at the kitchen table, she completed the two-hour test in just over forty minutes—that included checking her answers twice for careless mistakes, of which there were none.

She never told Mrs. Maybelline how quickly she breezed through these exams, and this allowed her to be free from her tutor's gaze for the full two hours. Meanwhile, Mrs. Maybelline just so happened to hand out tests quite frequently because it gave her the chance to roam the house and try to get a firsthand glimpse of the private lives of her favorite celebrities. Juniper had a feeling she wouldn't last very long at this job. But this was the least of her concerns. Right now she was busy looking out into the yard and what lay beyond it.

Binoculars around her neck, she walked across the lawn until she was in the best position to get a glimpse of the tree but without wandering too far from the kitchen window. Hoping to find something, anything, she and Giles might have missed, she spent a full hour of her test time searching for a neglected clue. But, unfortunately, however long she looked, nothing came to her. All the books she read, all the adventuring and exploring she conducted, it all proved useless. She and Giles had searched nearly every inch of the tree and now it stood there silently, unwavering in the breeze, revealing nothing. There was just that same raven perched on that same branch.

Juniper focused on the bird's jet black frame. “You never go very far, do you?” she whispered. “What is it about that tree keeps you coming back?”

Sometimes talking things out, even if only to oneself, can lead to astounding conclusions, as it did here for Juniper. Regarding the tree, she noticed, the raven was the only variable. She remembered it flying off when Dmitri approached, she recalled it seemingly greeting her parents the night before, and she was sure every creature in those woods avoided that tree, all but the raven. Suddenly she got the feeling that it had something to do with finding the entrance. It had to. What else was there? And, in a whisper, she said, “Show me.”

Beyond the yard, on that certain branch, the raven's head bobbed and turned, looking in several directions. At one point it seemed to glare directly at Juniper.
Did it see me?
she wondered.
How?

Shrieking, it fluttered its wings, arched its body, and pecked at the trunk. After a brief moment, it took flight, circled, and vanished behind the tree.

“It's the raven,” Juniper said in disbelief. “That's the key.” And with that, a chill crawled up her spine.

Later that afternoon, with Mrs. Maybelline having just left minutes earlier, there was a knock at the back door, a very soft rattling of the screen.
School would have let out about an hour ago
, Juniper thought, checking the clock
.
It must be Giles
, and she came charging down the stairs to greet him and inform him of her discovery. However, someone else reached the door before her.

“Who are you? What is this?” Without waiting for a response, Mrs. Berry grabbed Giles by the arm and yanked him back into the yard, where she began to scream for all her employees to hear. “Who let this boy on my property? Does anybody care about my safety anymore? What do I pay you for!”

Dmitri, halting his work as the other workers scattered, approached with his arms extended, palms up in a calming manner. “No, Mrs. Berry, you have it all wrong. He's—”

“I have it wrong? I have it wrong? How dare you! I'll put you back on the street in no time!” She shook Giles by the arm, her nails puncturing the skin. “Do you have any idea how many people would love to gain notoriety through me and my family? Snapping photos, spreading lies! We are targets!”

Knees weakening in pain, Giles cried out and pleaded for release. “Mrs. Berry, please . . .” but Juniper's mother paid him no mind.

“Mom, wait!” Juniper called, running from the house. Her binoculars, hanging around her neck as usual, beat against her chest with each stride. She saw the tears welling up in her friend's eyes. “You're hurting him!”

“Get back, Juniper. It's not safe.” The good cheer of the early morning was long gone, a bright mirage against the darkening day.

“Mom, that's Giles. He's my friend.”

“A friend? You of all people should know better.” Her head darted viciously from side to side. “He's jealous of us.”

“No, Giles isn't like that. I swear.”

Mrs. Berry glared at him, licking her lips and snapping her pristine teeth. “Perhaps not yet. Give him time.” She patted Giles down for a camera and, finding none, shoved him toward Juniper. “And you”—she pointed to Dmitri—“get back to work. I don't pay you to stand around, do I?”

“No, ma'am.” Sheepishly, Dmitri retrieved his ax from its stump and continued his chopping without a second glance back.

Mrs. Berry turned to Juniper. “You keep an eye on this one,” she said, referring to Giles. “He is in great despair. I see it.” She then hurried into the house holding her head, as if it were expanding.

“I'm sorry,” Juniper said to a teary-eyed Giles, who was busy massaging his arm.

“Don't worry about it, June.”

A nickname. Juniper was overwhelmed. She approached him and rubbed her thumb beneath his eye—something she remembered her father once doing for her a long time ago. “Don't cry,” she said.

Then, looking closer at her friend's flustered face, she gasped. His tears were falling from a grotesque black eye. “Oh my, did my mother do that to you?”

Giles shook his head and sniffed. “School.”

No more explanation was given, but no more explanation was needed; Juniper had an idea or two.

She gestured toward her house. “My mother never used to be like that,” she told him. “Everyone used to love her. She treated everyone so nice.”

“It's the tree,” Giles said with a croak. “Right? Same as my parents. That's what's causing this.”

“We're going to find out.” She then proceeded to tell her new friend everything, from her parents' journey into the wet, dark night to their balloons to their surprising good cheer the following morning to her theory about the raven.

“Do you really think a bird can help us?” he asked about her plan.

“I think we don't have anything else to go on right now.”

The setting sun left the sky bruised, and the light breeze became a cutting wind. Juniper and Giles returned to the decrepit tree and were greeted by the roving eyes of the raven. It flapped its wings wildly and let out a piercing screech, the loudest yet. Juniper gazed at it for some time, wondering if what she was about to do was crazy or not. Finally, she said, “We want to enter. Please, show us how.”

Immediately, the raven flew down and perched at the top of the trunk. It screeched some more, once at Juniper, once at Giles.

“Is it trying to tell us something?” Giles asked incredulously. “Are you actually talking with it?”

Intently, Juniper stared at the raven. In her stories animals talked all the time, and the real world was just as fantastic a place as anything she could create; it never ceased surprising her, so why should it now? “How do we find the entrance?” she asked again.

The raven squawked an odd song and pecked its beak at the tree several times.

“There?” Juniper asked. There was no groove in the spot, no dent or knot or scratch. It looked no different from any other part of the tree. She pulled out her magnifying glass and studied the area. And indeed there was a mark. It was very slight, almost unnoticeable, just a mild discoloration, as if the tree had bled a long time ago and scarred. No wonder she had passed over it when they first looked. “There?” Juniper asked again, pointing.

The raven screeched, appearing to nod once more.

“It can understand us?” Giles asked.

“We'll find out,” Juniper answered.

Making sure Dmitri was well out of sight, Juniper exhaled a deep breath, swallowed whatever fears festered, placed her finger against the mark, and pushed.

Chapter 7

T
HERE WAS A NOISE,
an unusual sound, as if the tree were speaking gnarled words. The ground trembled slightly, the raven flapped its wings, and yet nothing appeared to change. Perplexed, Juniper continued to stare, waiting for something, anything, to be revealed. And, sure enough, something was.

From behind the tree, Giles let out a startled gasp. His eyes were focused downward; his jaw hung slack.

Juniper followed his mystified gaze. In the bottom of the tree was a gaping hole, opening into the ground like a black mouth.

“Stairs,” Giles muttered.

Juniper collapsed into a crouch and leaned her head closer to the hole, peering within. “It's so dark. They look like they spiral and twist, but I can only see a few of them.”

“Do . . . do we go down?”

As if in response, the raven took flight, whizzing past their faces and down into the darkness, an echoing cry left for them to follow.

Juniper turned to Giles. “We go down.”

She placed her foot on the first cracked step, and a nauseating chill crawled up her ankle. Her entire body went cold.

Ducking her head and taking a deep breath, she took a step beneath the tree, then another, gripping the earthen walls for balance and guidance. Large insects crawled up and over her feet and across her hands. Spiderwebs clung to the walls like clouds. “Don't let me do this alone, Giles.”

“I'm right behind you,” he said, and to reassure her, he reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. Juniper, warmed at the touch, reached up and grabbed it.

The two friends moved slowly, unable to see the steps in front of them, the light of the outside extinguished in mere moments as if someone had squeezed the sun out. They didn't know how long they were descending, but it felt like hours. For Juniper, time seemed to have halted, or stretched into something immeasurable, incalculable. Maybe down here there was no time.

“What if these keep going forever?” Giles asked. “What if we can't ever get out?”

Juniper feared that as well and then remembered, “Our parents got out. So will we.” But did she really believe that? How could she be sure the ones who emerged were the same ones from years ago?

After what seemed like an eternity, there was a shuffling of light creeping up the stairs. The walls seemed to move within its soft glow, and, after a few more steps, Juniper had reached the bottom.

There was only one direction in which she and Giles could go, and that was down a large hallway that stretched into further darkness. The only light came from four torches, two on either side of the hall. It was eerily quiet, the only sounds being the whispers of the flames.

The raven flew from out of the distant darkness, hovered before them, squawked, then turned and flew back from where it came.

“Are you ready?” Juniper asked.

Giles was shaking, but he nodded his head and they began to venture down the hall, following the path of the bird.

There were six doors in all, three on each side of the hall, all evenly spaced. They were massive wood doors with ornate carvings in each. Juniper and Giles stopped at one, inspecting it closely. A marking of an owl filled a large portion of a panel. The predator's wings were extended and its claws were open. Just out of the owl's grasp was an image of two keys crossed and, below that, spread between hieroglyphic-like symbols, were two sets of Roman numerals:

III XXIII XL V VIII XII
XIII XIV LXI IX XX LII

Seeing this, something buzzed within Juniper's head. She had come across these images and numerals before. Reaching within her pocket, she seized her father's charred journal entry. Flipping over the absurd ramblings, she saw the same exact markings scrawled on the back.

Juniper decided to check the door directly across the hall.

The carved panel on this door confounded her even more. It revealed a many-pillared building with a sun shining through it chasing eight little pigs from within. Below that was what appeared to be a lion, but with a snake as a tail and a goat's head protruding from its back. It had a man pinned beneath its body. He appeared to be dead.

“Chimera,” Juniper whispered. “It's Greek mythology, I think.”

“What's this?” Giles asked, pointing to another door on which a sheep was tethered to six balloons, floating through the sky. Something dripped from its body, falling like rain to form a lake in which a hooded man stood rowing a small boat. There was another series of Roman numerals and symbols written in the lake, the identical markings from the previous door and, again, matching her father's writing.

“I don't know. Let's see what's inside. Open it up.”

Giles pushed against the door, his feet sliding backward in his tremendous effort, but it only budged slightly. “I can't,” he said. “It's heavy.”

Juniper stepped in front of him and put all her weight forward. After much strain, the door began to give. Giles looked away, embarrassed. The bottom of the door rubbed against the ground, adding much resistance, and Juniper had to pause to gather more strength. Staring at the opening, she wondered how long it had been since the door had last been opened.

From inside, something began to move closer, something that scraped across the floor at a torturously slow pace. Juniper and Giles were frozen in fear. As the noise grew louder, the grating sound stood their hair on end. Then, pushed through the opening, came a bowl, empty except for a small amount of brown water. A long wooden stick shoved it a few inches farther and Juniper noticed that something was dangling from the middle of the pole. It was tied with string and was no more than two inches in length but seemed to be moving, swaying. It appeared to be in the shape of a person. Could that be right? She reached out, but the stick was pulled away, leaving the bowl in the opening.

Juniper and Giles exchanged curious, frightful glances. Then they heard the noises coming from within.

There was a gurgling sound and a wet slap, as if someone were tossing a bucket of slime against a wall. It repeated in a timely fashion. But there was an even worse sound mixed in among this. It sounded like the voice of a very old man croaking his final breaths: “Salhack . . . Salhack . . . Jup nen skek. Salhack . . .” Then, worst of all, was the hiss. “Pleeeeeaaaasssee . . .”

Juniper went to push the door open even farther, and at that moment a blinding light blazed from inside. “What is it?” Giles asked, shielding his eyes. “What's in there?”

Before Juniper could answer, before she could even peer through the glare, the raven screeched past them. It flew into the room shrieking and rasping, causing a great and puzzling commotion. There were more indecipherable words, a scream, agony. The raven flew back out and pecked at Juniper and Giles until they returned to the middle of the hall. The door closed on its own.

Seemingly irritated, the raven flew down the hall, then back again. It repeated this several times until Juniper and Giles followed obediently. It was clear they wouldn't be able to conduct any further investigations, for the raven was intent on leading them somewhere.

Following their winged escort, Juniper and Giles approached a cavern of sorts. The torches were fading behind them, along with the six doors, and a new light burned softly in the coming room.

A voice emanated from within. The coldest, most peculiar and frightening voice they had ever heard.

“You have found me.”