Behind the Canvas (18 page)

“What was that thing?”

“The Fireside Angel?
22
No good, that's what he is. Works for that witch you was asking about. Thinks he's a big ol' alpha dog.”

Her skin crawled at the thought of the hulking creature barreling toward them across the field. “But what is he?”

Cash looked at the dark wall where, moments ago, they had passed through. “They say he's made out o' chaos. Out o' the desolation of war. That he's what happens when power gets hungry.” He shuddered. “But I've never met the guy. I got no problem sticking my tail between my legs and making myself scarce when I need to.”

Her eyes were adjusting now. The path in front of them stretched into the forest and was clearly defined, but everything else … wasn't. Where she expected to find trees and bushes stood large shapeless masses, similar to the outside of the forest. It was as if the forest had been drawn by a four-year-old and then cut apart and glued back together. She had the feeling that if she glanced behind the pieces, she would find that they were flat, like scenery from a theater stage. But she had no desire to leave the path to find out.

And everything was in constant motion. It was subtle—like a rocking boat on calm waters—but it was all moving. Some patches of the forest were like the colorful end of a giant kaleidoscope. Fractured pieces of reality that seemed familiar but didn't hold still long enough to figure out why.

“Can't believe I'm here again,” Cash muttered.

“You've been here before?”

“Once. One time too many. I was lost for days. Couldn't find that dang exit. And this is no place to be lost without a partner, let me tell you.”

She sighed. “And I had just decided to go home. What do we do now?”

Cash gestured at the solid mass they had passed through. “This door ain't gonna open again for a long time. And even if it did, who knows if Ugly's gonna be waiting for us. No, we need to find the opening, wherever it's gone off to. Come on.”

Cash started cautiously down the path and she followed. The dark shapes loomed tall on both sides.

“Just look at it,” he said in a hushed voice. “It's spooky. Worse than spooky. Like being in a fun house that ain't no fun. And the natives here—call themselves Cubists. A bunch of nut jobs, but don't say that to their face. I knew a greyhound that came in here once on a bet—never saw the skinny fool again.”

Cubists.
23
Well, that explains it. Kind of
. Picasso and Braque and those others who painted things that never made any sense. This looked like the kind of place they'd create.

They walked on, their footfalls disturbing the unnerving silence of the forest.

“How long do you think it'll take to find the exit?” Claudia asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine, sweetheart.” A growl came from his stomach. “Don't suppose you have a bratwurst on rye stashed away in that pack of yours?”

“If I did, I promise it would be all yours.”

Cash grunted. “So what did you think of the Lady?”

Claudia smiled in the dim light. “Well, where I come from—”

She jumped back with a shout. A figure appeared in front of her so quickly that she couldn't tell if it had stepped out of the shadows, sprung up from the ground, or materialized out of the air. It was taller than she was, and, like the forest, the details and texture of its body were missing, replaced with bold colors and angular shapes. Its face was divided into two colors, with simple dots for vacant eyes and lines for empty lips. It looked—vaguely—like a clown or jester.

Cash growled. Something crossed her vision to the side and Claudia spun to see another Cubist clown standing behind them.

They stared with their unsettling, dotted eyes.

“What do you want?” Claudia asked.

No response.

“We're trying to find the way out of the forest. Can you help us?”

One of them held what might have been a guitar. “You have come,” it said in a low voice.

Had they been waiting for her? Were these spies for Nee Gezicht? They were creepy enough.

“You are alone,” said the second clown. It sounded disappointed. “No matter. You will follow us. The execution cannot wait.”

Execution
. Her hand went to her throat. “What execution?”

“The execution,” the first clown said. “Planned for ages. Now it is time.”

Not again. Didn't she escape an execution already?
It can't be mine,
she thought desperately,
not if they've planned it for ages. Right?

The first clown beckoned with a stiff hand. “Come now.”

“Cash?” she said out of the side of her mouth.

“They got us surrounded, kid.” The dog jerked his head toward the forest.

Other figures moved in the shadows behind the tree shapes. She couldn't make them out, but they hadn't been there before. Maybe.

The rear clown poked her in the back with a stiff finger.

“Cut that out!” Claudia snapped.

“Move,” the clown said. “Now.”

Claudia racked her brain. She still hadn't caught her breath from their last life-threatening situation.
Think, Claudia, think
. And they were surrounded.… The finger poked her in the back again. “All right! I'm going.”

The Cubist clown in front moved down the path. But instead of moving its legs, it seemed to break into a thousand pieces that scattered forward, like leaves in the wind. Then the pieces reassembled several yards ahead before pausing and doing it again.

Claudia followed cautiously, Cash at her side.

“Where are they taking us?” she whispered after the clowns had fallen into a steady pattern of breaking, floating, and reassembling.

“Don't know. An execution, looks like.”

“What do we do?”

Cash glanced behind him. “Well, they outnumber us six to one, I figure. How are you in a brawl?”

“Not high on my list of talents.”

“Then we try hightailing it outta here.”

Their footsteps were the only sounds on the path through the forest. The clowns moved in complete silence, as did the creatures that guarded them from behind the trees.

If they work for the witch, then we're dead. If they don't, well, compared to Nee Gezicht there's nothing else to fear, right?

There was no exit behind them—they would have to move deeper into the forest. And they would have to be fast. Again. Her leg muscles throbbed in protest.

She eased her backpack from her shoulders and carried it in one hand. She stretched her shoulders back and forth to make it look like they might be sore. The backpack wasn't much of a weapon, but it did have Dr. Buckhardt's art encyclopedia in it, and it might at least disorient the guard.

Cash tossed a glance her way. She nodded a fraction and pointed with her chin in the direction they were walking. They would have to time it. Wait until they were close to the first clown and before it broke apart.

“Three,” Claudia breathed out. “Two. One.”

She leaped forward and swung the backpack around, aiming for the clown's head. Before the backpack was even halfway through its arc, the clown broke to pieces and disappeared.

She didn't have time to be surprised. Cash rushed down the path and she followed, swinging the backpack up on her shoulder. The trees became darker as Claudia and Cash plunged farther into the forest. There were no shouts, no sounds of pursuit, but also no doubt something was close behind them.

And there was a voice in her head. It was the Lady's voice, or a memory of her voice, repeating what she had said about the Cubists just moments before Claudia and Cash fled from the pavilion.

Listen to what they tell you. Listen to what they tell you. Listen to what they tell you.

Movement off to the side, deep in the trees. Clowns—or worse—breaking apart and reassembling, flanking them in the shadows.

The silence pressed against Claudia's thoughts like a juicer against an orange. Footsteps or shouts or rustling in the trees would have been more bearable.

The path split ahead of them. Cash veered toward the right, but instantly a Cubist clown reassembled in the center of that path. They spun and tore down the branch on the left.

After a dozen paces they came to another fork and again Cash veered right and again a Cubist clown appeared to block their path. Cash growled as they whirled around and charged down the other path. Claudia knew what he was thinking.

They want us to go this way
.

It had to be. The figures in the shadows moved so effortlessly and Cash had guessed there were a dozen of them. The Cubist clowns weren't chasing them. They were herding them.

And then in the dim light the ground gave way beneath them and they were slipping down a slick chute, like a twisty slide at the playground, spinning, tumbling, careening toward who-knew-what in the depths of the Cubist forest.

 

C
HAPTER
17

T
HE CHUTE
twisted and turned, the slope of it barreling them along at a dizzying speed. And then they burst into the open air for a brief second before sprawling across the level ground and coming to a stop, prostrate in the dirt.

Claudia's head spun but a sense of urgency pulled her upright. Cash lay on his back beside her, also scrambling to find his feet.

They were in a clearing of sorts—a wide space ringed by trees on the far side. Behind them rose a massive rock wall. There were lines up and down the wall and deep square chunks missing, as if something had cut them away. It was still Cubist and hard to define, but it reminded her of a quarry—a place where they cut stone blocks out of a pit for building. Toward the bottom of the wall was an opening where the chute must have spit them out.

The clearing glowed softly, like moonlight through fog, although it wasn't apparent where the light came from. Instead of opening up to the night sky, towering trees rose from the edges and leaned their amorphous shapes together to form a canopy that covered the clearing like a beach umbrella.

On the left side of the clearing sat a collection of chairs, set up in curved rows. Waiting for the show to begin.

Claudia whirled around, looking for options. A path they could follow, some place to hide, anything. But her heart sank. Figures emerged from the shadows. Dozens of them. All unmistakably Cubist.

“Any ideas, kid?” Cash said in a low growl.

Figures appeared right beside her—the clowns from before, flanking her now like prison guards.

She had no answer for Cash.

The figures in the clearing formed a loose ring around the prisoners, all of them keeping their distance, except for one. A portly man moved toward them—not like the clowns did, but walking with disjointed steps. He wore a blue coat that engulfed his large frame, two rows of brass buttons streaming down the front. His body, and especially his face, appeared fractured, as though Claudia was looking at him through a piece of crystal, dividing into shards that might never have made a whole to begin with.

The man stopped a few paces away and flung out his arms. “Well, well, well, what have we here? Victims? Cohorts? Vagabonds? Patrons? The possibilities are absolutely endless!” He leaned his fractured face in close to Claudia's. “Doesn't that just bolster your imagination, darling?”

She tried to take a step back but one of the clowns placed a hand on her shoulder. “Let us go,” she said. “We haven't done anything to you.”

The man in the blue coat stepped up next to the clown and spoke in a low voice.

“This is it, harlequins? This is all you've brought us? We can't execute with just one person.”

“And a dog,” said the clown. Cash growled at Claudia's feet.

“Don't look at us, Pablo,” said the other split-faced clown. “The entire forest is empty.”

The man in the blue suit—Pablo—scratched a fragment of his face. “Well, we can't delay any longer—everyone's anxious. We'll have to do it with just her.”

“And the dog,” the clown said.

“Yes, yes, and the dog.” Pablo turned back to Claudia and Cash and continued speaking with the energy of a carnival barker.

“What you fine young specimens of impertinence and fur don't realize is that the second you step foot in the Forest, you relinquish all rights, privileges, and affirmations heretofore claimed by your dreary little lives. But fear not! Worry not! Here amongst our merry band you will see things never imagined. Feel emotions never yet conceived. We specialize in opening minds and abstracting angles and detaching you from your head, which is, no doubt, stuck in the lugubrious realm of inflexible boundaries and preconceived notions. The concerns of yesterday no longer concern you. You're with the Cubists now!”

Pablo bowed low and waved an arm to one side. The crowd parted, bringing the rows of chairs into view.

“Please,” Claudia said. “We need to go—”

“Places everyone!” Pablo shouted. “Curtain up in two minutes!”

The crowd became a flurry of movement. Pablo jabbed a finger at Claudia and spoke to the harlequins. “Get them in their seats and keep them there.”

A hand clamped her arm like a vise. “Hey!” she cried. She jerked away, but the harlequin held firm.

The other harlequin made a whipping motion with its hand. A thin stream of brown substance flowed from it toward Cash, lashing around his neck and holding fast, forming a collar and leash.

Cash snarled and snapped, but the harlequin picked him up by his new collar and held him at arm's length.

Together the harlequins marched them forward toward the rows of chairs. Each chair was distinct and each definitely Cubist. The first chair they came to had four legs aligned in a single row beneath a seat with a steep incline. The harlequin shoved Claudia down into the second chair—a relatively level seat with three legs. Two hands remained clamped firmly on Claudia's shoulders. The other harlequin tied Cash's leash to the third chair.