My heart stopped.
One second she was there at the head of the group, andthe next second she was gone with a sharp scream—a scream that didn’t stop, but became more and more distant…
The others stopped and we had no choice but to do the same. They stopped, and they were looking down at the floor where Mimi fell—no.She was still falling, but not quite. More likeslidingdown the smooth branches that twisted around one another to create a carved bridge that connected the floor we stood on, to whatever was below.
Wherever Mimi was sliding to—and she was laughing now, no longer screaming. She was laughing and cheering—woohoo!
“Jump!” Russ ran the three feet to where those smooth branches extended beyond the hole in the floor and jumped.
He cheered, too, as he went sliding.
“Go, go, go!” March shouted, pushing the others forward, and they didn’t hesitate. A look back said that three more wraiths were right behind us, and I was willing to bet even more would come, and they were fast now. Faster than they had been before.
I looked ahead, knowing I’d freeze if they got too close—or stop to try to fight them, which would be suicide. I had nothing on me, only my magic that was food for them. The only way to survive was to get away, to jump down a slide made of smooth branches that had somehow twisted together in just the right way.
March was the only one left near that hole in the floor, and I knew for a fact that if I stopped to tell him to just jump first, we’d only waste time. He wasn’t going to, not without seeing that I was safe.
So, I spared both of us the seconds and I jumped straight into the hole.
A scream escaped me—and then I was sliding. I didn’t even feel anything, couldn’t tell if I was hurt or not, but I wasmoving, and March was right over me. That was all that mattered.
The slide went on forever—possibly fifty feet. Maybe it was the speed that made me see things, but I could have sworn there was a disruption about halfway down that I just slightly felt against my back. I could have sworn that I saw another forest floor—or rather anotherlevelof the tree that we slid right through, then continued farther down.
I only saw it for a split second, though, so I couldn’t be sure I hadn’t made it up. In the state I was in, anything was possible. I hardly breathed in the time it took me to see the bottom. I doubt I was even alive in those minutes before I saw the others, clapping, hi-fiving each other, cheering.
And I had no idea how to slow down or stop—I was just focusing on breathing because this was somehow worse than that strange hole on the ground I sometimes fell through for hours and hours when I dreamed.
When the slide ended and I slammed against the ground, I rolled three times before I was able to stop—and by then, March was on his feet somehow, having managed to stop just off the smooth branches.
Breathing. Moving. Alive,I told myself, and held onto those three words until my breathing was under control and my heart didn’t threaten to beat out of me anymore.
“We’re okay,” March said, nodding at me when I finally stood up. “We’re all?—”
“Guys!”
Somebody screamed. The laughter died, and we all knew what came next: something bad. Something very bad.
It was.
The timewraiths were sliding down the same branches as us.
“Break it! Break the slide!”
Could have been March that said it, and then most of theHands were already onto it, their magic turning the tree bright, a rainbow of colors slamming onto the twisting branches. It took me a moment to join them, adding purple to Cook’s magic, and the energy vibrated in the air, filled it with tension so thick I could hardly breathe.
C’mon, c’mon, c’mon…
“It’s not working,” I said, though maybe not loud enough for all to hear.
But our magic wasn’t working—it wasn’t breaking the wood as it was supposed to. It was doingnothingat all—and the wraiths were halfway down already.
Panic made my ears whistle. If only there were axes or saws or anything at all to help us cut the wood. My mind was made up to magic an axe, only by then the wraiths would reach us, and?—
“Here! Over here!”
Levana was screaming at the top of her voice, and she wasn’t with the rest of us, pouring magic onto the slide. Instead, she was on the other side of it, on her knees just by the edge where the smooth branches had grown from, and she was digging. She was pulling at the roots and leaves frantically and—unplant what you planted.
The words popped into my head one after the other. The flowers. That’s what the flowers had said.
