Of Witches and Wind (34 page)

But what else could I say that wouldn't make him blame himself? I didn't want to make him even angrier than I already would, running away like this.

Are you sure about that?
asked a vengeful little voice inside me.

Tears filled my gaze. I blinked them back, annoyed.

I couldn't save Chase and Lena, and everyone else, if I let myself get really upset. I couldn't give in and wonder why Dad hadn't told me he was engaged, why he hadn't asked me how I felt before he proposed, why he hadn't interrupted that casting director—

I shrugged on my backpack. “Stay quiet until I say I'm alone. Okay?”

I opened the door slowly, but no one was waiting for me this time. I ignored the pang in my chest and crept down the hall, away from the double doors that opened toward the parking lot, away from Dad. I slipped out a side exit, where a child actress was crying so hard her hair stuck to her tear-and-mascara-smeared cheeks. Her mother gave me a sharp look that clearly said,
Move along.

“Sorry,” I whispered. I checked each way for passing trolleys, and then I hurried down the alley toward the back lot. It was empty except for a skinny boy wearing neon orange sunglasses, carrying an armful of bowler hats. The back lot was totally abandoned, but
I kept an eye out anyway. You never knew when an angry father or a security guard on a Segway would come by.

“Okay. I made it.” The fountain's mosaic rippled and showed me a glimpse of hedges again. “What's next?”

“Try ‘open sesame' in Troll,” Lena said.

“No, really,” I said, half-annoyed. Too much was at stake for us to be joking around.

“No, she's right. I've heard that too,” Chase said. “Trolls aren't smart enough to remember passwords, so they use the classic ones.”

“So close your eyes, picture a troll, and say it,” Melodie said huffily.

I tried it, and instead of words, a weird gurgling noise came out of my mouth instead. I was smart this time. I checked by hand before I tried to jump through. My fingers brushed the mosaic immediately. “Didn't work. What's the next one?”

“This one is a little tricky, because it's technically a spell,” Lena said. Great. Spells. Something I sucked at. No wonder she sounded worried. “But it's a really common one. It's basically the Fey trick for picking magical locks.”

“ ‘Break what was whole, crack what was smooth, open what was shut,' ” said Chase in Fey.

“Exactly. You say that, and then you'll need to throw in something that has power,” Lena said. “I wish I'd thought to pack you some dragon scales, but I think one of your water bottles would work.”

“Perhaps more than one. The stronger the lock, the more power is necessary,” Melodie added.

I unzipped the carryall and shoved my arm in, all the way to the shoulder, and felt around. I pulled out a cylinder with a metal cap, with symbols embedded straight into the glass—a miniature version of the West Wind's prison.

“Here goes nothing.” I repeated the spell and let the water bottle go. It didn't splash. It didn't clink to the bottom of the mosaic. It completely disappeared. So did the tiled flames. All I saw was the maze of hedges. “I think it worked.”

“Yes!” Chase pumped a manacled fist in the air.

I glanced over my shoulder. A trolley rushed by an alley over, but I didn't see any security guards. I didn't see my dad.

No one had come after me. I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and finished the text:
I'm sorry. I have to go back. I can get to the airport on my own. My friends need me right now.

It wouldn't matter if Dad got this right away. He might not even check the bathroom. He would try to head me off at LAX.

He would be so worried. Mom would scream at him, probably, when he told her that he had lost me. This wasn't the way he and Brie should spend the beginning of their engagement.

But I ignored the lump in my throat and pressed send. “You guys ready?”

“Yep,” said Lena.

“All systems go,” Chase added.

I took a deep breath and jumped.

I braced for another splash, but it never came. I didn't even feel wet, and when my heels struck the ground, so hard I stumbled, my clothes were as dry as they'd been on the surface.

“Ow—no broken bones,” I told Lena hurriedly, before she could freak out, “but still—ow.”

A palace stretched out in front of me—white marble with huge, shining windows and gleaming cherub carvings, gilded gates, and windowsills. I'd fallen through the fountain onto the set of a Marie Antoinette movie—with trolls.

The ceiling was smeared with decades-old soot. We were
definitely inside some sort of ancient, almost-burned down studio lot.

The trolls streamed out of the palace in ragged armor, their spears and axes and swords glinting under a giant lamp. Fifty of them, at least. It would have scared me a lot more if I hadn't noticed one thing.

“Chase, why didn't you tell me that the Hidden Trolls were so short?” No matter how fierce they looked, or how sharp their weapons were, they only came up to about my waist.

“I didn't know,” Chase said. I could practically hear him rolling his eyes. “It's the
Hidden
Troll Court, Rory. Nobody has seen them for a century.”

The trolls surrounded me, fifty feet or so short of pricking distance. Some of them looked nervous to be confronted by a giant seventh grader like myself. “Who knows what the sceptor looks like?” I asked.

“Like a birch tree,” Chase said. “But silver and about two and a half feet tall.”

I dashed up onto the nearest white bench to get a better view. In the clearing beside me, a human mannequin stood on display, garbed in a gold robe with a funky geometric pattern. In the next clearing, a pair of shoes—red low heels with bows—glittered on its own pedestal. Another space boxed off with hedgerows had a pair of towering emerald doors standing open in the middle of a grassy space.

But no scepters in sight.

That was when the trolls decided to attack.

“Geez, Rory—hold still,” Chase said. “It's hard enough to see on this itty bitty screen.”

“Fighting now, just FYI.” I disarmed the half-size troll who ran
up first and stabbed at my shoulder. “If I stay still, I'll lose blood.”

The hollow feeling in my chest eased. Maybe I didn't know what to do with a new stepmother, but
this
I could handle.

I turned aside an ax with my sword. I snap-kicked at a bunch of spear shafts—knocking one out of a troll's hand. I winced when I put my foot back down, feeling a new bruise. I wished I'd thought to change shoes. These flats didn't protect the top of my foot the way my sneakers did.

“How many trolls have you killed so far?” Chase asked eagerly.

I frowned. “Guess.”

At least seventeen more trolls ran up behind the bench. They really weren't very smart. They kept knocking their comrades out of the way trying to get to me. And they kept injuring each other. One with wrist guards broke the nose of his neighbor with a crack so nauseating that it probably would've given Chase nightmares.

“Okay, fine—how many did you knock unconscious?” When I didn't answer, Chase said, “Rory, come on. This is not a good time to become a pacifist. We're not there to watch your back. Do you want to win this fight or not?”

“I just want to grab the scepter.” With my left hand I snapped the handle of several battle-axes like toothpicks. “Beating up a bunch of little trolls doesn't exactly appeal.”

But I did accidentally knock a few out. A troll with a gauntlet and a sword snuck up behind me and spooked me with a quick stab at my neck. I managed to knock the blow aside and punched at his face without thinking about it—he flew back, taking three of his fellow soldiers with him. They didn't get up again, but more than one groaned.

“Whoops,” I said, panting. The trolls backed off slightly, kind of freaked out, I guess, by the super strength. My hand hurt, but
first I checked the mirror I'd been holding, looking for cracks around Lena's worried face. “I don't think I messed it up—”

Chase emerged in the M3 suddenly, pointing, “Rory, behind you!”

I whirled around, expecting a super-huge troll with a mace or something. But two clearings over, beyond those ruby red slippers, something silver shone in the fake sunlight.

“They just left it out there in the open, where anyone could steal it,” Chase said, clearly delighted about it. “How stupid can they be?”

“Well, they don't have many visitors,” Lena said. “Besides, I'm not so sure that's it.”

I eyed the paths of the garden, memorizing the way.

The short truce was definitely over. The trolls stepped closer, but they weren't looking at me. I mean, they were, but not at my face—they stared at my feet with a freaky gleam in their eyes.

“Lena, are you even wearing your glasses?” Chase asked.

“Yes. But it doesn't look like a scepter to me.”

Something pricked my left elbow. I turned aside just before a spear jabbed me. I smashed the shaft with my sword hilt, and it broke with a very satisfying splintering noise.

“Wanna bet?” Chase asked Lena.

“You guys—we're not making bets while I'm fighting for my life.”

I vaulted off the bench and dashed out of the clearing.

“Yes, we are,” Chase said. “So, how about it, Lena? If I win, you'll give me one invention of my choosing.”

The trolls stumbled after me, but slowly. Sprinting past the fan's pedestal, I congratulated myself on my clean getaway—until I spotted a helmeted troll hiding among some rosebushes.

“Whoa!” I lifted my sword to deflect his battle-ax, but instead, the troll dove at my legs.

I fell, not expecting a tackle. I skidded so hard my shoulder dug a groove in the grass, but I squirmed out of the little troll's grip pretty fast.

“You okay, Rory?” Lena asked, slightly panicked.

“Yeah.” Two steps later I snatched up my sword from the grass. I didn't notice I had lost a shoe until I glanced back. The troll hugged it close to his chest, his squarish fingers stroking the gold beads.

“I—I don't think I can concentrate on a bet right now,” Lena said, kind of apologetically.

Another troll caught up, but he didn't come after me. He snatched at his comrade's hand—at my shoe. The helmeted troll didn't appreciate that—he punched the newcomer in the stomach.

I didn't question it. I just ran.

I ducked into the circular patch of manicured grass, close to the silver thing Chase had pointed out, and found something disappointing. “You guys, this isn't it. I mean, it's a scepter, but not
the
scepter.”

I turned the M3 around so they could see. On the pedestal sat a skinny wooden rod with a globe at the top. It had been painted silver, glass jewels glued to the side. A tag—yellowed with age—fluttered from a string. I turned it over and read,
PROP USED IN FILM PRODUCTION OF KING LEAR, OCTOBER
1939.

“A decoy,” Lena said with new respect. “Oh, they definitely have someone helping with their security system.”

Chase didn't mention he'd lost his bet. “So, we move on to plan B: Run around until you find it.”

I hurtled over the hedge and back onto the path. A bunch of trolls ran after me, slowed by their short legs and heavy armor. I
tore across the gravel, wincing at the sharp little stones pricking my bare foot. I glanced at the pedestals as I passed them: a ruffly hoop skirt, a bent spoon, an Olympic medal that was obviously fake—the gold paint had rubbed off on one edge.

“I'm not seeing it.” I tried not to panic. I'd almost run all the way back around to the weird trolls fighting over my shoe.

“Okay,” said Lena slowly. “So they must have hidden it. Can you take one of the trolls aside and see if you can get any more information out of him?”

“Oh, yeah—brilliant idea,” Chase said. “I bet if she says ‘please' and ‘thank you,' the other forty-nine trolls won't kill her.”

“Give her a break, Chase. She's not feeling well.” I swerved around a corner and sprinted down the next path, wondering what the heck was so special about my shoe?

I mean, it was pretty, but—

I slowed.

No. It was more than just pretty. It was a Hollywood artifact.

So was the fake silver scepter. So were the red slippers. The
ruby
-red slippers from
The Wizard of Oz
. Most of the garden's treasures were human-made—a museum to old Hollywood. It could have just been a coincidence that everything here belonged in old movies, considering where the Hidden Troll Court was located. Or maybe not.

I stopped in the middle of the path.

I tugged off my remaining shoe and faced the rest of the Hidden Trolls. “Wait!”

They stopped hurtling toward me, their eyes not on my sword, but on my shoe. I took that as a good sign.

“What are you doing?” Chase asked. “If you wait for them to catch up, you'll lose your advantage.”

“Do you understand me?” I thought I heard myself speaking troll, but maybe I was just so out of breath I was rasping without Lena's translator. “Somebody nod if you can understand me.”

Two dozen tusked troll faces bobbed up and down.

“I want to make a trade. This shoe for the scepter of the Birch clan.” Okay, so that trade sounded idiotic. I had to make it sound more appealing.

The trolls were silent, but at least one of them made a face. His tusks were capped with gold and blue gems. That must have made him the troll king.

“What's Rory saying, Lena? All I hear is grunting,” Chase said.

“She's trying to negotiate,” Lena said.

“It's really nice,” I added, feeling ridiculous. “Designer, I think. It makes an appearance in
Whose Heart Is Mine?
, a movie that comes out next spring. Maggie Wright wore them.”