The Wilds (Reign and Ruin 1) (6 page)

Marty rushed
down the steps, brushing away the mist from his ears. He could see
my body nearing the end of the stairs where the ground cut off into
air and fog.

"Stop, Maggie!
Stop!" He was only a few feet away from reaching me when my feet
met empty space instead of ground and I fell off the steps into the
mist. He grabbed frantically into the air but his fingers grasped
only the smooth silk of the cool sky. Gazing off the edge of the
stairs there was no trace of anything solid, only a slight
commotion like a hand swipe through smoke. He turned back to the
office and hurried back up the steps. Cirrus would have to know
that his opponent had fallen out of the cloud. They would have to
find me, and quickly, before someone else did and ruined the
game.

Chapter
5

A world of unimaginable color and depthless
darkness, Palet is made from both dreams and nightmares and while I
don't dream, I have it under good authority that dreams are hardly
predictable. So when it comes to Palet, expect the unexpected.

Like, for
example, falling off into a fucking cloud.

I felt my feet
leave the ground and my body drop, but I heard nothing but
whispering and saw nothing but the mist.

What a sense of
letting go! A sense of freedom and empty and blank thought;
listening to the wind whistling up and over my ears was the closest
I've ever been to dreaming. It filled my leather jacket with a cool
wind that was luxuriously soft on my bare skin. My feet dangled in
the milky whiteness below and I felt like I was floating more than
falling in that halfway point between sleep and awake. The familiar
feeling of vulnerability I always experienced when I pumped myself
higher on childhood swing-sets began to creep into my stomach.

However, it
wasn't long until the wind settled down around my body. The
whiteness around me started to merge and blend with colors. Shades
of green dominated over the blues, reds, and yellows as they
blurred together and melted into more defined shapes of rocks,
rivers, and trees. These shapes fell around and beside me to join
the world at the same time my feet lightly touched a ground of
leaf-covered dirt still forming beneath my feet. The stars floated
up in firefly sparks around my head through the scattering of tall
trees to join the blackness of the night sky above me. Sounds came
at me next, the soft chirping of crickets and the rustle of warm
wind in the branches of the trees and bushes. This world felt
saturated in awe. I reasoned all my senses must have come back to
me doubled in intensity.

For a world
of dreams
, I thought,
it feels surprisingly real
.

I walked
forward hesitantly through the brush and found that the forest seem
to stretch endlessly around in every direction. So this was the
playing field.

My hand toyed
nervously with the necklace. Find Cirrus. Chase him down. Steal his
dreamcatcher. Regain my rightful place on the throne.

What in the
hell have I gotten myself into?

With no
previous instructions on what to do on my own, I began to think
that my adventure to Palet was one that could have constituted more
previous planning and preparation. Weren't fighters given weapons?
I could really use a big knife or machete. Something to hack
with.

The darkness
seemed to curl around the edges of the brush and between every gap
in the trees. Small lights danced in the distance and short
chirping kept up a steady beat as I walked hesitantly to the edge
of my clearing. My mother had always told me to stay in one place
if we ever were separated. In the big department stores, it was
something that I had found especially hard to stick with. Usually
all I wanted to do was hide in the clothing racks and pretend to be
a jungle queen amongst the taffeta. Now, as the night air blew
against my face, I was suddenly aware of my current vulnerability
and, with no clothing racks to provide shelter or safety, I started
to look around me for a suitable place to sit and wait for
daylight.

"This is
already gearing up to become the worst summer vacation ever," I
grumbled to myself as I settled down on a clear piece of ground.
But for all the soft noises, gentle wind and peace it was a long
while before my thoughts grew muddled and sticky and my mind
finally gave up its grasp on consciousness. The darkness was just
turning into gray when I finally let the twilight birds sing me to
sleep. For my first night in Palet, the air was warm, the skies
were clear, and the rivers were calm.

The necklace
throbbed once, but I didn't feel it. It was searching, sending out
its message to the other. Its partner and lover. The Reign Walk had
begun.

Six days to go
. . .

I breathed
evenly in my dreamless, forgotten existence of sleep. The sky
streaked itself with reds and purples as it soon would the sky
lines of New York. The city would slowly be brought into light and
the sounds would finally wake up from their slumber. The streets
would once again be filled with the urban ambiance of taxis and
shouting.

But until it
caught up with the accelerated time of Palet, it was still a city
sleeping. And a world away, I would only remember blackness, one
lost night in millions, like all the others.

Chapter
6

And when she was good, she was very, very good .
. .

The forest hummed with
unseen life and dripped water from its branches. The ground beneath
where Maggie lay inhaled as if to take in the sweetness of skin
while the night stars faded slightly. Dreams flitted in and out of
the trees. They must have felt the warmth of the sun creep over the
horizon, preceding the sunrise that would force them to retreat
back and disappear into the red of the sun. A breeze blew up
through the trees and the sky into a manor window open to welcome
the night air.

The breeze,
sensing unrest, hesitated for a moment. It turned around quickly to
flee but was snatched up by a shadow. The shadow quickly threw the
curtains back over the window and looked curiously into its hand.
It leaned down to inhale the air it held cupped carefully in its
fist, still cool and fresh from the forest dark.

Cirrus exhaled
and he could feel his blood start to warm with the life that the
sleeping girl radiated. He smelled cornflakes and damp soil. At his
side the pocket watch pulsed once.

Yes, we've
begun to move.

The dawn light
started to slowly filter in through the cracks in the window's
curtains and a breath of fresh air pushed through to enter the
small and stuffy laboratory. Cirrus turned back to stoop over his
work table. Exhaustion lined his face and dust rested on his light
eyelashes. Perhaps he would stop for breakfast soon, if Cirrus felt
like it would do him any good; if it didn't then no matter. It
wouldn't be the first time.

Cirrus had
thrown everyone out in a rage after Maggie fell. Neither he nor
Marty had known what to do.

"We were above
the Wilds! She could be anywhere! In any dream!" Cirrus insisted.
"Anything could get at her! We need to find her!"

"To be
perfectly honest, Sir," Marty had replied hesitantly, "would that
not be a good thing?"

"The Reign Walk
requires a controlled environment Martin. I must make sure she is
safe, ensure that she falls into the right hands." Cirrus's gaze
was unwavering as he bore down on Marty. "Mine. That necklace and
that girl.
Mine
."

"I'll go to the
Council." Marty walked to the door. "But it would have helped if
you had told her your house had already lifted away."

"If you find
her, keep tabs. The Walk has technically begun. And she has a
vicious head start," Cirrus had called after him.

Cirrus's hands
trembled as he knelt closer to the table. His bare arms stretched
and strained as he wound the cogs tighter. Oil smeared his hands
and forearms; his skin was hot and tender.

Light radiated
from a particularly horrifying project drawn from a nightmare he
had of a small, blue bottle fly that can burrow its way into a
person's brain and tickle their thoughts. He had woken up terrified
and weeping. Cirrus's nightmares were vivid; it was hard sometimes
for Cirrus to differentiate them from real life. He didn't like to
think about sleep often.

He had worked
on his pet for over three days now and his mind could hardly take
anymore concentration. A bead of sweat dripped slowly down his neck
and down the arch of his back, making him shiver indulgently.

The darkness of
his workshop was only broken by the thin light of a candle and the
almost imperceptible outline of the sunlight around the curtains.
The candle wavered dangerously as Cirrus let out a shaky breath and
sensed around again for the new presence in Palet. He found it,
still breathing regularly in a dream forest that had happened to
appear in the Wilds. What dream was impossible to know. But the
image glittered in his mind as a radiant light that would guide him
out of the terror of his dreams and into the sane, rational world
of the living. He could still win; she might have had a head start,
but he had the upper hand.

"Where are
you?" he whispered. "Time to come home."

Cirrus turned
away from his work table and the light of the blue bottle fly faded
away as he set about to another task. He faced a long shelf of
tools and works half finished. Rummaging through his work shelves
with some difficulty, he frowned at the odd bits and ends of dreams
he had previously started on and then forgotten: a teddy bear that
smiled through needle teeth; half of a stuffed quail with a small
stop watch fixed into its center; even a baby blanket wearing thin
at the edges.

Behind an old
porcelain ballerina and covered in a greasy piece of cloth was a
red, wooden box Cirrus had all but forgotten. He pulled it off of
the shelf and placed it carefully on the ground, rubbing his dry
eyes at the sudden rise of dust.

He pushed aside
the rag and felt gently at the old wood painted brightly like a
circus tent in a border of shocking blues and sunshine yellows. A
tearful clown looked up at him miserably from the lid of the box
and Cirrus traced its face with the tip of his finger. He found the
iron clasp on the side of the box and, with the help of the greasy
rag, wrenched up the metal.

The inside of
the box was cracked and peeling and there was a hole in the side
where a mouse has gnawed through and died. Cirrus picked up its
tiny skeleton delicately. Each bone was as thin as tissue paper and
the mouse's skull grinned in merriment, as if Cirrus had just said
the most wonderful joke about cats at a dinner party with champagne
and cheese. Cirrus couldn't help envisioning the mouse in little
coat-and-tails, commenting on the horrible weather and his spacious
new home in the red wooden box. Cirrus's hand jerked from fatigue
and the mouse's bones dissolved into the air with a sigh.

Further inside
the box was a little toy train with a front car barely the length
of one of his fingers. It was run on clockwork with wheels that
actually rotated and a small chimney that sprouted steam. Cirrus
picked up all its pieces and set about assembling them so that the
train would run down a small line of tracks, ending at the red,
wooden box. He polished it until the metal was as black as a
beetle's back.

He wound up the
train and set it at the front of the tracks.

In the house of
Cirrus, night was day, day was night, and clocks ceased to tick.
Time itself seemed reluctant to pass in this house of dreams gone
awry. But things were changing.

In only a
little while
, Cirrus thought,
I will lead this nation to
glory. A descendent of the Painter will join me and chase away the
darkness. And I will sleep again.
He breathed deeply once, but
instead of the smell of cornflakes he smelled only dust and
mothballs. And finally, letting go of one great breath, he pulled
back the train and let it go . . .

Chapter
7

Drops of water fell on my nose from the canopy
above. The sounds of early morning stirred the forest and as the
burning sun of the Wilds shone through the trees out of the dark,
the night was still ticking down slowly in the city of New York.
But if time caught up with us, the new day would find a woman
driving up to one of the smallest shining scrapers to fetch her
daughter, only to find her whisked away to whereabouts unknown and
her brother in no state to explain why. Only God knew if I'd get
there in time.

My eyes
fluttered open hesitantly and blinked in the early morning
sunlight. For a few moments I forgot about the night before, the
glass marble, and the feel of Cirrus's lips brushing softly behind
by ear. I was in my uncle's apartment and I needed to get up to
clean the filth from the paint, food, and heroin. If my mother saw
how her brother lived . . .

But then I
remembered everything. Like a searing jolt of electricity, the
events of Marty and the Reign Walk shot through my body and I
gasped violently with the surprise. My arms pushed off from the
ground and I was suddenly on my feet, grasping desperately at the
band around my neck and looking quickly in every direction.

I wasn't in New
York. I didn't need to look for needles.

A wave of
vulnerability coursed through me, along with a curious feeling of
relief and, even more, excitement.

It was all
real.

And if it was
real, the stakes were real. The contract was real and this forest,
this sunlight and these trees were real and I was set loose in it.
And even more primal, somewhere else in this great expanse was
Cirrus, looking for me.
Hunting
me. And I was hunting
him.

Just close your
eyes and pick a direction . . .

At first,
walking through the forest reminded me of somewhere I would find
back home: tall, regular looking trees and the smell of elm. I saw
gnats hovering in clumps and in the distance I heard the tell-tale
sounds of a woodpecker. I considered for a second that perhaps I
had sleep-walked into Central Park and that I would eventually come
across an early morning jogger or a disgruntled bag man.