“Good job,” she told the ghosts, meaning it. “Thank you. Really. I couldn’t have done it all without you.”
Chloe curtsied. “Nothing to it.”
The grumpy ghost rolled his eyes. “Right. Now, about our heads …”
Oh, Annie hadn’t forgotten; she’d just wanted to properly thank them and return the ghost bell before she started time back up again. If the ghosts hadn’t helped it would have taken her forever to get everything done. Truth was, she was also a little nervous about starting time up. She had done it once. But that didn’t mean she could do it again. She wanted to see and talk to Miss Cornelia and Bloom, true, but she was so nervous about the Raiff. So nervous about everything—all those wretched vampires sniffing at her neck, the loathsome trolls.
Stalling another moment as the ghosts gathered round, Annie fetched the ghost bell from her pocket.
“Here,” she said, handing it toward the grumpy ghost. “Thank you for the use of it.”
He shook his head and made his hand turn solid. He grabbed the bell and Annie’s hand and brought it back toward her heart. “You keep it. You might need it again someday.”
“But—”
His eyes softened but his lips frowned, and his hand dematerialized and vanished. “Just start time, Annie.”
“But—” She swallowed hard. “I’m not sure I can.”
“Just start it, Annie,” the Woman in White moaned, suddenly materializing again now that the Raiff was no longer in the room. “Please.”
Annie pocketed the bell. She reached out to touch Jamie and Cornelia, who were closest to her. They touched Bloom and SalGoud and Eva. She would start time and then stop it really quickly, as the ghosts knew. That way she could update the others about what had happened and they could make a plan.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She tried to calm down, to feel the resonation of the strings that controlled time.
“Annie,” Chloe’s little voice implored.
Annie took another breath and whispered, “Start.”
Nothing happened.
“Draw!” Chloe said. “Use your foot and make the word.”
Twisting so she could write in the dusty floor, Annie began the letters. S-T-A—the A didn’t really show up—R-T.
“Start,” she whispered.
Life came back into Miss Cornelia’s hands. Eva took a ragged breath. SalGoud’s muscular back heaved, and Jamie’s shoulder moved beneath her hand. She’d done it. She allowed herself to smile. The ghosts cheered. Chloe threw her teddy up into the air and caught it. Bloom’s astonished eyes caught her own as she clutched Miss Cornelia’s sturdy hand. The old woman instantly stood up straight, losing her crumpled and defeated posture.
“I was faking it,” she said to Annie, who was staring at her with her mouth wide open. “Oh, I’m hurt, but not all that bad.”
Miss Cornelia grinned. “It’s best to let your enemies assume you are worse off than you really are. They underestimate you then.”
Her hands went up to fix her hair back into a proper bun. Annie wanted to bask in it all, but knew that there wasn’t any time to lose, so to speak. She grabbed Miss Cornelia’s elbow and Jamie’s shoulder and shouted, “Stop.”
Sounds rumbled up from the dungeons.
Oh no, it hadn’t worked.
She tried again. “Stop.”
Chloe shook her head. No aches.
Terrified, Annie looked up at Miss Cornelia. It wasn’t working. She tried again. “Stop.”
Nothing.
“Stop.”
Jamie had sympathetic eyes.
“Stop.”
It was no good. She couldn’t stop time at all anymore. She’d lost it. The noise of the monsters, the demon, and the vampires rumbled up from the dungeon, coming closer.
29
Powers May Fade
Miss Cornelia’s gentle hand cupped the back of Annie’s head, and the girl opened her panicked eyes.
Miss Cornelia’s voice rang out strong and echoed in the chamber. “Stop.”
All the ghosts immediately grabbed their heads and started moaning and rolling their eyes.
“They are so dramatic,” Eva shouted as one spirit dressed as a nun started rolling her eyes and ripping at the top part of her habit.
“Try not to take too long,” the spirit who resembled a Civil War doctor said.
Miss Cornelia turned her attention to Annie as all the spirits simultaneously disappeared. It was a little eerie to have them suddenly disappear at once, to have a room that was completely filled suddenly go empty. Annie didn’t notice. She was shattered. She’d failed. She hadn’t been able to stop time. If Miss Cornelia hadn’t been there … She dropped her hands and grabbed her stomach. The thought made her sick.
Miss Cornelia bent a bit to peer into Annie’s eyes and spoke quickly, “You don’t have unlimited resources, Annie. The body gets tired. Stopping is a great responsibility.”
“But it didn’t work,” Annie murmured. She was trembling all over.
“I gather you’ve done it a lot. Has she, Bloom?”
Even as he searched the room for the vampires and trolls, Bloom said, “Too many times to count.”
“ENOUGH!” Eva bellowed. “Where’d the vampires go? Nobody hangs a dwarf upside down! Where’s the Raiff? He kicked my ax! Nobody kicks a dwarf’s ax.”
No one answered her questions.
“It’s like running or drawing, Annie. You get tired after a bit. You need to refuel,” Miss Cornelia said, walking quickly toward the door and beckoning them to follow. “It’s a skill that has to be refined, and unfortunately, it is also a skill that begins to fade with age.”
She sighed and Annie thought she suddenly seemed frail again. They all followed, except for Bloom who was busy peering into hallways and through doorways. He’d even checked beneath the high table. Miss Cornelia would have none of it.
“Come, Bloom. How do you all feel?” she asked. “Well enough to run, I hope. Because we have to run for the border, for the sea. I can’t hold the stopping as long as I used to, and goodness knows that the ghosts would prefer that we do not hold it long at all, but we must speed toward Aurora as fast as we can.”
“You mean time might start without you?” Annie asked. “Like it does for me?”
Miss Cornelia stepped over a goblin. “I am very old, Annie. My power fades. In a place like this, it’s hard to use at all. That’s why we were all so grateful to find you. The Raiff does not know this. We won’t tell him, will we?”
Annie tried to process all this new information as they strode quickly through the halls of the fortress, passing the Raiff portraits. The one where he was garbed in pirate clothes and had a rascally grin seemed to wink, but Annie knew that was impossible.
At the entrance to the room, Annie found more of the weapons that the vampires had stripped off them. Bloom seemed especially happy to have his bow and quiver back. He kissed each arrow, counting them as they walked. The Golden Arrow was still there, mixed in with the others. They passed door after door, so many that Annie lost count.
“The mayor—” SalGoud began.
“Yes?” asked Miss Cornelia, her eyebrows arching up with her question.
SalGoud didn’t seem to know how to continue, and Annie struggled for the words to help him. “You trusted him.”
“Yes. Yes, I did.”
“And you trust us?” Annie asked.
Miss Cornelia touched her hair. “Yes. Yes, I do.”
“Well, how can you trust anyone again?” Annie asked. “After that? He gave you to the Raiff. He was ready to forfeit the whole town. He was—he was—”
He was horrible. He had held Annie on his shoulders. She’d felt safe up there, safe walking with him through the night. He had danced with the fairies, sung for the town, given speeches and praise and told them that he loved them, and all the time he was ready to let them all fall.
“Trust is not generally something you choose. It is like love and fri
endship. Most of the time it is just there whether you want it or not. You grab it between your hands, Annie, and you hold on to it like you were holding on to the back of a dragon. Not for anything do you let go. Not until it is ripped out of your grasp. It is that precious.”
“But—” Jamie muttered.
“Remember, he will not want us to stop time while his trolls and vampires are all still here,” Miss Cornelia told them, lifting up her skirt so it wouldn’t snag on a troll that she leaped over. A tiny drop of blood from the mayor’s knife trickled down her neck and caught in the collar of her dress. She wiped at it. “Don’t doubt that he will find the ways. But, it won’t come to that. No matter what, Annie and I will not stop time for him. Aurora has a chance in a battle if it must be, but we will have no chance if we are frozen, no chance if it’s a surprise. We must warn everyone.”
But the elves …
They couldn’t go back yet, not without the elves. And Miss Cornelia didn’t know and they couldn’t tell her.
At the threshold, they found Grady O’Grady, frozen. Working quickly, they un-netted him and Miss Cornelia laid her hand across his face. “My old, sweet friend.”
Annie touched SalGoud’s arm, searching for help in telling Miss Cornelia what Annie didn’t have the heart to tell her.
“Miss Cornelia. We have determined that we cannot all go back.” The stone giant’s voice came out calmly.
She lifted her head, peering at him. “What do you mean?”
“If you open the portal now … If Annie does … They will all cross. Only Grady O’Grady can go back and only with one. That one is you. We are here to rescue you,” Jamie explained.
She stood up straighter. “No. One of you children will go back.”
“Aurora is dying without you,” Annie insisted. “And you have already been through so much. You need to be there and prepare for war, for when we do cross over.”
“And what … what will you do?”
This time it was Bloom who spoke. “We are here to rescue others. We can’t tell you who because if you know, the Raiff will know.”
She seemed to take this in. “He will hunt you down.”
“We know,” Jamie said.
“He will try to take Annie,” she said.
“We will keep her safe,” Eva said. “With my ax.”
“He will try to kill you all.”
“He won’t,” Annie said, pulling Miss Cornelia into a massive hug. “We have to do this, and we will have to open the portal when we’re done. But for now, you need to go … prepare Aurora. Call in all the magics that you can. Hurry. Make it strong so that we have something good to come home to, something good to protect when we return, something to fight for.”
The old woman kept shaking her head. “No … You’re just children … You’re just … I can’t possibly let you.”
“It isn’t about letting us. We have to, Miss Cornelia. There is no other way. Not when you love someone.” Annie let her go, but Miss Cornelia grabbed her back into another hug.
“Remember, bravery does not trump mercy, and glory doesn’t mean anything without kindness,” Cornelia said as they finished their good-byes. “It is love and kindness that matter more than anything.”
“More than life?” Annie asked.
“Always,” the woman said, turning so the tears in her eyes would stay hidden.
They’d run for an hour without her, careening past frozen trolls, stuck satyrs, still monsters of so many kinds, when Miss Cornelia lost the stop and the world came rushing back again. It came with a foul smell and a howl of the Raiff that echoed across all of the Badlands. The terrible undead shriek of pure evil forced Annie to stumble in her run and clamp her hands over her ears.
Bloom’s arm wrapped around her waist and he pulled her along. “Come, Annie.”
They sped up their pace, but they knew that it might not be good enough, might not be fast enough.
“We did it, didn’t we?” Annie asked Jamie in a quiet whisper. “We saved her.”
“Yes.” He stared into the distance. “And now we have to save some more.”
He paused for breath and his fingers tightened around Annie’s hand. “No matter what, you must not stop time. No matter what he does. No matter whom he threatens, Annie. We must not stop time.”
Annie said nothing. In the distance, a red dragon and a beautiful white-haired woman soared for the strings.
“We’ll do this,” she whispered. “We’ll get them for you.”
They had to.
“No time to celebrate, wimplings!” Eva hollered, ax held triumphantly in the air. “To the elves!”
“To the elves!” the rest of them echoed, and they ran forward, hopeful and terrified, triumphant and vaguely lost, all at once.
30
Evil Keeps on Eviling
The demon waited in his lair, anger coursing through his skin, impatience filling his cold bones and blood. Darkness pervaded everything.
Around the demon, trolls and ogres, evil vampires and satyrs bustled and stomped, getting ready for their escape from the Badlands back to the world of humans, a world where their wickedness could run wild. The demon couldn’t wait. He missed that world, missed the beauty of it. He wanted it for his own.
It was all going exactly as he’d planned.
He moved quickly toward the window. Trolls shuffled out of his way, bowing their heads. He ignored them and instead went to the window, reaching his hand out of it, into the hot, humid air. It smelled of rotten eggs and cooked broccoli. He missed the smells of Aurora, the pine trees, the clean mix of snowy air and ocean. There were tiny parts of the Badlands like that, but not enough.
“Soon,” he whispered.
He whirled around, still smiling. His pale blond hair was nearly white, matching his teeth. “The elves have outlived their usefulness. Do with them what you will.”
He thought of Annie Nobody, the girl who was at the castle, the Stopper girl who came from his own blood, and he smiled. He had made her, his magic had touched her, and she had rebuked him; but in doing so, he had felt her power and now knew how great it was. She was the power he needed to drain. If he hooked her into the machine, his own power would be almost endless. He would be able to change the essential nature of the strings fully, open portals again, go back to Aurora.
He smiled.
Life was good.
But evil was even better.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to Emily Ciciotte of the Glory-Filled Land of Wisdom and Super Stardom, who—like most brilliant and amazing people—wanted a certain kind of story. I am so lucky to be able to give it to her. Her heart and gumption and mind inspired so many of the characters in these stories. You can see pieces of her everywhere.
Thank you to my agent, Ammi-Joan Paquette of the Agent City of Goodness, for taking me and all my neuroses on and doing it with such magical grace.
There is no greater editor than Cindy Loh of the Editor School of Amazingness. Just like Emily, this book wouldn’t exist without her magic. Thank you, Cindy, for believing in quirkiness and for putting up with so much goofiness. You are brilliant and so good.
Like Cindy, the amazing, passionate Bloomsbury team does this book-making thing for a living, but they fill the process with so much love, hope, and intelligence. Thank you to Donna Mark, John Candell, and Owen Richardson, who made this into such a beautiful book. Thank you to Hali Baumstein of the Land of Awesome Patience, and to Brett Wright, Linda Minton, Sally Morgridge, Pat McHugh, and Melissa Kavonic, the managing editor. They are all unsung heroes. As are Cristina Gilbert, Lizzy Mason, Courtney Griffin in publicity, as well as Erica Barmash, Emily Ritter, Eshani Agrawal, Shae McDaniel, Beth Eller, Linette Kim, and Brittany Mitchell in marketing.
Many thanks to the People of Mike and Lynne and Grayson Staggs’ House of Wednesday Fun, who inspired joy and story in me almost every Wednesday night, with special thanks to Samantha Spellacy and Nate Light, John Bench, Davis and Alisa, Jon and Sa
rah Day Levesque, Joe Pagan, Thom Willey, Kaitlin Matthews, Michelle Bromley Bailey, Mike Brzezowski, and Nicole Ouellette. They see the worst of me and still talk to me, which is saying a lot.
It is always good to have friends who adventure with you, and therefore many thanks to my own troop of wandering funsters—Steve and Jenna Boucher, and Lori Bartlett and Maryanne Mattson. Thank you to Marie Overlock, who always has my back even when I don’t see her, which is very Eva of her.
Many thanks to my brother, Bruce Barnard of Handsome Land, for putting up with my dwarf ways.
Thank you to the readers, librarians, teachers, writers, kids, and other humans. I still can’t quite believe how awesome you are and that you read my books and support them. It means everything to me.
And finally, many thanks to Shaun Farrar of the Awesomest Man Ever, who somehow always manages to love me and save me, over and over again. There is no better man for me than you. There is no better love.
Text copyright © 2017 by Carrie Jones
Illustrations copyright © 2017 by Owen Richardson
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[email protected] Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Jones, Carrie, author.
Title: Quest for the golden arrow / by Carrie Jones.
Description: New York : Bloomsbury, 2017. | Series: Time Stoppers ; 2