AfterI found a prison guard to help me out of this godforsaken land, I’d show him.
11
The Ghost Town
It took several minutes to reach the first house, minutes during which I scanned each window that lined the street. Curtains hung crookedly in some, but most were bare, made up of panes of glass in need of a thorough wash. A lot like my body.
The skid of little rocks and pounding on the hard-packed earth behind me made me look over my shoulder. It was just Remo. His gaze didn’t meet mine, too busy surfing over the fronts of the houses. A huge white sign with BOARDING HOUSE in black block letters hung over the gaping door of the first building.
I glanced over my shoulder again.
This time, Remo met my gaze. “Want me to hold your hand, Trifecta?”
His belittling enquiry lent me courage. I pressed my fingertips into the worn wood, and the hinges groaned. “Hello?”
“Great idea. Shout out your presence,” Remo muttered from across the road.
I shot him one of my best glowers. “I’m looking for a prison guard.”
“What if you find a prisoner?” He ducked around an old horse carriage missing a wheel. The wooden thing was slumped against the weathered white siding. A sign indicating LIVERY swayed in a slow breeze, its chains clinking.
Humming softly, I entered the boarding house. I expected laser fences, cowering prisoners, or more homicidal pink-petaled creatures. The only thing I found in the old house was furniture painted an unfortunate grass-stain shade of green, open cupboards filled with piles of chunky plates and cracked bowls, and a lopsided round table surrounded by four chairs missing at least a rung or the entire seat. Dust motes glittered in the pale light slanting through the dirty glass. Yellowed wallpaper sagged against the walls that didn’t seem quite straight. I walked over to a narrow staircase sandwiched between two walls and a ceiling I barely cleared.
I listened for footsteps on the faded boards or low murmurs, but besides the wind whistling outside, there was no sound. Humming a little louder, I started up the creaky stairs, keeping my gloved hand on the banister. The black material turned gray from the thick coating of dust. Rubbing my palms together, I made it to the landing that led to an equally narrow hallway with even lower timbered ceilings. I hunched a little as I stepped toward the first door, which gaped open. The bedroom was empty, save for a rusted bedframe, a three-drawer dresser topped with a chamber pot, and a speckled mirror. I strolled to the next door and the next. All ajar. And the rooms beyond them, vacant.
I returned to the ground floor and stared around me, my gaze locking on a blackened chimney where not even cinders or the scent of charred logs lingered. I exited the boarding house, shading my eyes. The sunshine hadn’t pierced the dense cloud cover, but the light was still painfully bright, especially after the obscurity of the abandoned dwelling. I scanned the street, wondering if Remo was still in the livery. Had he found anything? Anyone? I almost crossed the street but decided not to seek him out.
I wasn’t a coward. I could explore this world without his help. Without anyone’s help. After all, I almost ended up here alone. Why he’d followed me in was still a mystery.
Even though I hadn’t been particularly excited to meet Kiera, I almost wished I’d run into her, just to comfort myself that I hadn’t dropped into a wormhole that killed off its inhabitants the same way it killed off their powers.
I walked to the next building, the front of which was curved like a horseshoe and cinched by a wraparound porch. The black sign nailed above it read SALOON in bold, chalk-white lettering. We had one of those in Neverra, modeled around an archaic human one, complete with squeaking swing doors, curled horns, and cow-hide barstools. I pressed my fingertips into the swing doors and entered a space made of polished tawny wood. No decorations adorned the walls, not even black-and-white wanted posters. A varnished bar ran the length of the far wall, topped with a forest of green-glass bottles. Throat clenching for a drop of liquid, I strode over. Every receptacle was empty.
I went to flip a bottle over, but my gloved hand skidded right off its neck.What the—I attempted to pull it off the bar but it was stuck. I tried picking up another, but it, too, didn’t budge. Frowning, I walked over to one of the tables and shoved it. Its feet might as well have been soldered to the wide planks for all it moved. The only thing not stuck was the dust. I was tempted to return to the boarding house to check if the furniture there was also wedged to the floor but decided to test this out in the next building instead.
I exited onto the dusty road. Again, no Remo in sight. He couldn’t have gone far though, the valley was small and the town compact. He was probably exploring the . . . I lifted my gaze to make out the sign atop the building across the road from me.How appropriate.The BROTHEL. If Remo was anything like Gregor, and there were real women in there, I might never see him again.
Good riddance.
My next stop was the GENERAL STORE. There was no sign up front, but burlap sacks filled with grain trimmed the windowsill, a black iron register sat on a counter, and tall shelving units ran across the three other walls. The highest one was weighed down by porcelain canisters and brown medicine bottles with the wordswitch-hazel,arrowroot, andetherscratched across peeling labels. I poked one. Stuck. And empty. I climbed the ladder to check the canisters. The lids were screwed on too tight, but my guess was that there’d be nothing to see. The rest of the shelves were bare except for the dust.
I hopped back onto the wide-planked floor and crossed the store toward the burlap sacks. I lowered my hand inside, expecting my fingers to comb through the grains, but the seeds were pasted to one another. Were they even real? Edible? Although I wasn’t hungry yet, if I didn’t find a way out of here fast, I’d need food. My gaze snagged on the ladder I’d just climbed. Three of them were propped against the shelves. If I nailed all three together, I might reach the portal. Remo would have to hold it up. Would he work with me, or would he assume I was using him to leave and refuse to help?
I thought of mygajoïthen. I could use it tomakehim hold up the ladder. Optimism flooded me until I went around the counter and gripped one of the ladders. Like everything else, it didn’t move. Another decoy. If only I could get my hands on a saw. Unless the ladders weren’t made of wood but crafted from a magical, unchoppable material. I wouldn’t put it past the whackjobs who’d created this place.
As I retraced my steps to the glass door, I wondered what had gotten into thewariffand my grandfather to build a fake frontier town. What sort of twisted torture was this? It must’ve driven the prisoners mad. Oh, Skies, what if making fae lose their minds was the goal of their secret jail?
When I stepped out of the store, launching into a new tune, I squinted at the barren land stretching beyond the town, all gray dirt and clumps of glass. What if the vegetation was fake too?
I entered the bank next door. Or what I assumed was a bank from the teller windows and large vault in the back, which was gaping and empty. Pappy and Nana Em’s favorite movies were Westerns, so I’d watched plenty during our sacred Saturday night sleepovers, which coincided with my parents’ weekly “date-night.”
I walked back out, no longer on my guard. There was clearly nothing and no one around. Of course, the moment I thought this, a lace curtain fluttered in a second-story window across the street. My heart leaped right into my throat, interrupting my song. I grew silent and still, pulse rustling through my ears until the figure passed in front of another window, and I made out tufts of red hair amid caked ochre.
It’s just Remo,I reassured myself, running a shaky hand through my own hair, weighed down by so much dried mud.
A new tune forming on my lips, I headed to the penultimate building on my side of the road—a small clapboard structure filled with desks and benches. A red apple was propped on the largest desk. Was this a schoolhouse? Had Gregor sent children to this supernatural prison?
I walked over to the apple. Expecting to be met with resistance, I almost took out my eye when the fruit came loose and my fist arched through the air and struck my face. I uncurled my fingers and stared at possibly the most perfect apple I’d ever seen—glossy and unblemished.
