“I just have to stand in the middle and stomp three times,” Johann explained. “Cover for me. Pretend like you’re taking my picture or some such …”
“What are you getting?” Annie asked.
“I’m summoning a Helper.”
“We don’t need no Helper person.” Eva squinted at him and put her hand on her ax. “What are you getting at, Johann Murray-Broadsword?”
“I’m not getting at anything, okay? And this Helper isn’t a who, per se. It’s a thing. Something that you will need to help you on your quest. Do you know that the Broadswords have been cursed for many a century, stuck here on the Emerald Island, unable to explore the vast fortunes and riches of the world—” Johann seemed to have found the correct spot on the bridge.
Jamie grabbed Annie’s arm.
Bloom cleared his throat. “Eva, I thought you said we could trust him.”
“I’m sure we can … He’s a dwarf. You can always trust a dwarf,” Eva stated simply, but her grip on her ax tightened and then Johann stomped three times.
“Aketay usay ownday,” he droned in what Annie was 100 percent certain was pig latin.
But before she could translate, the bridge below their feet gave way to a giant slide made of slippery green lichen. Screaming, they fell down and down … sliding on their bottoms.
“This. Is. Not. Happening,” Eva hollered.
SalGoud was attempting to slow down by grabbing onto pieces of the wet green substance, but it was too slippery and instead he ended up turning topsy-turvy and somersaulting ahead of the rest. He landed with a flop on mossy stones.
He started to stand and thought better of it when he saw what was in front of them. “Guys … um … be wary … there is a beast.”
Bloom, Jamie, Eva, Annie, and Johann landed in quick succession around him. The slide disappeared with a screech and came back again.
“A beast? A beast! Let me at him.” Eva started to whip out her ax, but then she spotted the creature across the chamber. She stopped midmovement and fainted.
The beast stooped over as it ambled toward them. This smalling down of its true size only made it seem even more frightening. Its huge eyes followed them as the children fell into the torch-lit chamber that glowed with a strange purple hue. Long fangs sprang up into its furry bearlike face.
“That is not a Helper. It’s a Bugbear!” Bloom vaulted in front of the others. “Stand back.”
SalGoud scurried along the floor, searching for his glasses, and Eva passed out again, collapsing with a thump on top of SalGoud’s shoulders.
They were all too spread apart for Annie to stop time quickly.
“What’s a Bugbear?” Jamie blurted.
“It’s bad … It’s really, really bad …,” Johann admitted, retreating toward the lichen slide. He tried to scramble up it and failed, just slipping right back down and landing on his rump. “They say the first were born to goblins, meant to help them in the annihilation of the unicorns, and they say this one killed all its siblings so the goblins had to banish it, but I’m not sure if it’s true or not because they say a lot of things that aren’t true.”
“Who are they?” Jamie asked.
“Exactly.” Johann poked him in the arm. “Ex-act-ly! This Bugbear is not the Helper thing we need to find. And who knows who they are who started all these tales.”
The Bugbear was definitely toying with them, slowly stalking forward as if positive that they had nowhere to run to. Annie searched the area. They had landed in an enclosed pit far below the bridge and street.
“No offense, but I don’t care about its origins right now,” Annie said. “We need to find a way out of here.”
“I’m afraid there’s only one way out,” Johann said, pointing toward the tunnel and the beast in front of it. “And the Bugbear is protecting it.”
The Bugbear licked its lips.
“Okay,” Bloom said urgently. “I need my bow.”
Annie gave him his bow and arrows, picking them up off the floor. He shot an arrow directly at the Bugbear. It whizzed through the air perfectly, so fast they almost couldn’t follow its flight. But the Bugbear snatched the arrow out of midair, broke it in half, and tossed it down onto the floor. It smiled. There was no doubt in their minds that this monster could easily have killed a bunch of unicorns.
“I think we need a distraction,” Annie suggested as the Bugbear took a step—just one step—forward. If it rushed them, they’d be goners. Its paws had claws bigger than her wrists.
“Good idea! Good idea … Hmm … who can we sacrifice … Well, who don’t we need?” Johann asked. “I’m guessing him.”
He pointed at Jamie.
“We absolutely need Jamie!” Annie hollered. “Why would you even bring us here? Did you know this was going to happen?”
“Maybe he should be the distraction,” Bloom said, shooting another arrow. Again, the Bugbear snatched it out of midair and broke it.
“Maybe she should stop time. Isn’t she a Time Stopper?” Johann asked.
“I’m not very good at it,” Annie admitted. Anxiety twisted her stomach into knots.
“Just try, Annie …,” Bloom said.
“But you can’t help me … You’re sort of busy …,” Annie blurted, frantically writing the word “stop” on the palm of her hand. “It’s not working.”
The Bugbear stepped closer.
“Someone drag Eva over!” Jamie yelled. “Or we’ll be stuck carrying her.”
“What are you even talking about?” Johann asked, but he grabbed Eva by the arms and hauled her toward the group.
Annie pressed the top of her forehead between Bloom’s shoulder blades. Jamie grabbed her coat and SalGoud’s. Johann followed suit.
“Make sure to hold Eva!” Jamie insisted.
Johann touched Eva’s pigtail with the tip of his boot, and Jamie gave up worrying and instead tried to use a calm voice. All six were connected with one part of their bodies touching another, even if only barely.
“Just focus, Annie. You can do this. You got this,” Jamie gushed out.
“Stop,” she said.
Nothing happened.
She hauled in a big breath. She could do this. She had to.
Bloom shot another arrow. His elbow barely missed knocking Jamie in the nose. The Bugbear chuckled. There was no other word for it. It chuckled.
It was all up to Annie.
“Stop!” she commanded, trying to feel the vibrations that made up every little cell of every single thing. She tried to reach inside of them and make them bend to her will. She wrote the word on Bloom’s back, visualizing every single letter. “Stop!”
And the world did. It finally did.
“Can I let go now?” Johann whispered into the stillness.
Jamie thought that maybe they’d all been holding their breaths.
“Yes.” SalGoud bent over and started trying to rouse Eva. “We should hurry.”
Eva’s eyes snapped open. “What did I miss?”
“Everything,” Bloom said, stashing his bow and creeping up toward the monster.
It had a sword at its belt, a bow, and several arrows of its own. Bloom stashed the arrows into his quiver and handed the sword to Jamie, who looked at it with disgust.
“Give it to Annie, then. She’s not afraid of it.”
“I’m not afraid of swords.”
Eva harrumphed, yanked herself up to a standing position, and slammed Johann in his chest. “What.” One push to the stomach. “Did.” Another push. “You bring us here.” A mighty push. “For?”
His back was up against the slimy wall. “There’s something down here that we need in order to continue our quest … A Helper … I didn’t know … about the Bugbear … I had heard there was a Helper … And you could only get the arrow if you had it.”
“That what?” Eva gave him a hairy eyeball worthy of a hag. “That it was a trap?”
“I knew it would be dangerous, but … Well, dwarfs laugh at danger.” Johann la
ughed to prove his point, but instead of a hearty chuckle, it sounded more like a fake hollowness.
Jamie reached around the Bugbear to gently pet Annie’s shoulder in what he hoped was a reassuring way, but as he did, his arm grazed the Bugbear’s own furry arm and something inside of him flipped over. It was as if his stomach rolled in half and then righted itself again. He couldn’t tell what that feeling was. He would have expected it to be fear, but instead it felt more like recognition?
Bloom motioned them forward. “Come on. We have to find another way out.”
“Wait!” Johann pushed past Eva, moving her ax aside. “We have to find the Helper.”
“We don’t know that there is a Helper, though.” Annie wiped her hair out of her face and said a silent “sorry” to the ghosts who she knew would have headaches again.
Jamie thought she looked tired. Time stopping seemed to drain her.
“And tell us while we walk. I don’t know how long the stop will last, and I want to put distance between us and … and … what is that again?”
“A Bugbear,” Jamie answered before anyone else could.
“Exactly,” Johann scoffed. “How can you be magical people if you don’t even know what a Bugbear is?”
Eva made a growling noise as they rushed through the lichen-covered passageway. They passed abandoned buildings that had been built over and never removed, doors that led to dark, hollow window spaces that likely hadn’t seen daylight for centuries.
“You better not be insulting me or my friends, Shortsword,” Eva said.
“Broadsword,” Johann corrected, and his eyes glanced over the rest of the children, who were eyeing him rather suspiciously. “I would never insult a fellow dwarf, but to be cavorting with elves and stone giants … It seems a bit—”
Eva roared and side-tackled Johann into an ancient inn’s outer wall. She tossed her ax to the ground where it squished into the soppy floor that was once a medieval street. Spores rose in great clouds as Johann’s head smashed into the moss-covered wall.
“Are you attacking me?” he thundered.
“What do you think?” Eva snarled back as they wrestled around in circles.
Meanwhile Annie was yelling, “Stop fighting! No fighting!”
SalGoud was trying to yank them off each other; Bloom’s face reddened with impatience and then pain as Johann’s attempt to kick Eva ended up being a direct smash to Bloom’s shin; Jamie stood there, horrified, and then began laughing.
“Why are you laughing?” Annie whispered.
“They look so silly … like … like puppies wrestling,” he explained.
“True.” Bloom hopped on one foot. “But they are wasting time, and we don’t know how long the stop will last or how to get out of here, and that Bugbear—”
He didn’t have to finish his sentence. The Bugbear was not something that they wanted to fight; the Bugbear seemed as if it didn’t know how to lose. Plus, it had teeth.
“Dwarfs! STOP FIGHTING!” Bloom yelled.
They ignored him, and kept rolling around on the floor, grunting and insulting each other’s weapons of choice and family line. Annie picked up Eva’s ax and got it out of the way.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if your grandfather was a pixie pacifist,” Johann grunted.
“Don’t you be insulting my grandfather!” Eva bellowed back.
“Your father couldn’t annihilate a peanut butter sandwich.”
“Your mother couldn’t cut a head of cabbage in half, let alone a freaking zombie.”
“Is that an ax you wield or is that a toothpick?”
“Don’t you be insulting my ax!” Eva screeched and landed a fist against Johann’s cheek.
“Enough!” Bloom yelled, yanking Johann back and away from Eva. “You two are acting like … like …”
“Trolls?” Annie suggested as she disentangled Johann’s suspenders from around Eva’s foot.
“Jerks?” offered Jamie.
“Dwarfs.” SalGoud sighed. “They are acting like cranky dwarfs.”
“We ARE cranky dwarfs,” Eva sputtered the words out, sitting on her butt in a pile of dust, broken cobblestones, and what appeared to be chicken bones.
“Well, we don’t have time to be cranky,” Annie scolded. “I could lose the stop any second and we haven’t found a way out of here.”
“You keep saying that.” Johann straightened out his shirt. “And what kind of Stopper can’t make a stop last?”
Annie didn’t answer. She just turned away and strode down the corridor again. He was right. She bit her lip to keep from crying and walked a little bit faster down the corridor that was once a street, through the ruins that had once been homes and stores. They were just forgotten, too, weren’t they?
“Listen! I, Eva Beryl-Axe, am the only one allowed to insult our Time Stopper, you got it?” Eva bellowed behind Annie. “And I do it out of love. That’s why I’m allowed.”
“Maybe I do it out of love, too,” Johann said sheepishly.
“You don’t even know her. Now go and apologize,” Eva said and grunted as she pushed Johann forward.
Annie still didn’t turn to look. She would much rather be alone at the moment, and she never rathered being alone, ever. She’d been alone far too much to actually think of it as a wanted or preferable state of being.
Three seconds later the dwarf was waddling beside her. He had a cut on his cheek from the fight. She pulled out a tissue and held it there, stopping the blood before he even had a chance to apologize.
“She’s ridiculously nice,” Eva said as she caught up to them. “Don’t look so shocked. She’s nice to everybody, even the people who are jerks and insult her. I should know. Now apologize.”
Annie checked to see if the bleeding had stopped. It had. She continued walking forward. “Apologies don’t really mean anything. It’s about actions. A good apology is like a promise not to do something hurtful again.”
“That’s what I do, then,” Johann said, catching up to her once more. “I won’t insult your Stopper skills again, Annie.”
“Okay. Apology accepted.” There was a hitch in her voice as she said it, though, and she turned her head to make sure Jamie was still with them.
He was straggling behind a bit and it worried her.
“Now, where is this Helper thing and why did you make us come here? No lying.”
She still didn’t trust him. None of them did anymore.
“The Helper is rumored to be down here. Somewhere. There’s a society—a sort of secret society.” Johann swallowed a gulp of water. Water dribbled into the reddish hairs of his beard. “Well, it’s in a book, actually. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure it was real. And I thought—Well, once Eva contacted me about the Golden Arrow—I mean, it became obvious it was real … And, um … And the society is sworn to keep the sacred bow and arrow safe.”
“Safe from what?” Annie asked.
“It’s ‘for what,’ isn’t it?” Jamie answered before Johann had a chance to reply. Annie was glad he had caught up to them, but a little surprised he answered before Johann did. That was pretty bold for Jamie; he tended to hang back a bit.
“That’s right.” Johann cleared his throat and suddenly sounded much older and more pompous. “There is a prophecy—”
Eva groaned. “There is always a freaking prophecy.”
“Eva!” Bloom scolded. “Let him talk.”
“I’m just tired of prophecies,” Eva grumped. “Look … There is a turn in the street. Maybe we’re almost out of here.”
And as they turned, they spotted a wall of bones, ascending all the way to the lichen-covered ceiling.
“Those aren’t chicken bones …,” Annie whispered. “Are they?”
“No.” Johann stopped, turned, and continued, spreading his arms wide. “Those belonged to humans.”
16
Polka-Dotted Giggles
“Somebody better give me back my ax,” Eva informed the rest of the shocked, motionless friends
. “I don’t like to face a wall of bones weaponless. Of course, my hands are deadly weapons, but you all know what I mean.”
Annie gladly handed Eva her ax, shaking her head free of the cobwebs that seemed to have gathered there, and she tugged on Bloom’s elbow. “Maybe you’d better take your bow out again, too.”
“That’s a lot of bones,” Bloom said in a marveling voice.
“They are the ones who have tried to find the Helper before.” Johann reached up into the air and pointed forward, past a hole in the wall of bones toward a chamber where something small glowed red in the corner.
“What is that?” Annie asked, moving so someone else could look through the hole. “Can anyone see?”
Johann peered through. “Well … wow … it’s true …”
“What’s true?” Annie asked, but Johann jumped backward, startled by movement in the wall.
Hiding in the cobbled-together wall of human femurs and tibias, skulls and rib cages, separated from the rest of the bones by what looked like old, caked mud, was a skull that was bigger than the rest and moving. It wasn’t actually coming out of the wall or anything like that. The jawbone was moving up and down, up and down, and then up and down again.
Annie looked expectantly at Johann.
He cleared his throat rather nervously and started to fix his shirt again. Another skull did the same thing—it just began to move all by itself. And then another did, too. In a quick flash, all the skulls started chattering. The ribs, the disconnected arms and toes and legs and hips didn’t move. Johann fiddled with his sword and refused to make eye contact with anyone.
“Just tell us …,” Eva started. “Just tell us and I will try not to take my ax to your head and—”
“I’m not trying to harm you!” Johann protested. “This is just one of the things that the taker of the bow and arrow must do or …”
“Or what?” Annie prompted.
“Or they’ll die.” He stared at the floor, which was bare here and smooth except for long grooves that resembled ax marks.
“Looks like a lot of people have died here already, so maybe you should just hurry up and get on with it.”