IF: Gods and Monsters Page 4

  “Wait. Wait!” Cole said excitedly. “Aren’t there maps in those books?”

  “There are some, yes,” Haberdash admitted.

  “Then we can! Right? I mean, if we can pair her location on our map with a dream location from an official map at the very same instant—”

  But the Stranger was already ahead of him. He unfolded his map and smoothed it on the record room floor. “Does each moment have a full map of the Boundarylands?”

  Haberdash sputtered. “Well, I—yes, I—in the back, there is, yes, why?”

  The stranger placed a knee on his map to hold it open. “How many instants does it take for this machine to spit out a moment? How many instants exactly?”

  “Like I said, it happens the very second—”

  “How many instants exactly?” the cowboy repeated, steel creeping into his voice. He was growing impatient.

  “I believe—I believe—” Haberdash stammered. “I believe two. Two instants.”

  “Right. Cole, get ready to grab.” Cole ran over to the machine and perched against the conveyor belt. “When I say so, grab the next book off the belt. Got it?” Cole nodded. The cowboy rubbed his hands together to bring a little life to his fingers and hunched over the map. Polly’s dot of blood danced around the map, fading here, reappearing there. The cowboy waited with practiced patience. There were only two markers on the map that didn’t shift: the Wellwhich Way Station and the Pinch. The only way to compare the two maps was to wait until Polly was near one of these two markers. And so he waited, and he prayed that she would not get near the Pinch, where the Royal was waiting to sniff her out.

  Cole flexed his fingers, ready to grab at the cowboy’s say-so. Haberdash took to the air and flitted nervously back and forth.

  Seconds passed.

  Minutes passed.

  A quarter of an hour passed.

  The cowboy waited.

  Then, suddenly, Polly’s dot disappeared from its blip in the northwest and re-materialized just at the boundary of the Wellwhich Way Station. “Now!” the shouted. He jabbed his finger against the map, marking the exact spot. Cole pitched forward and threw himself onto the next book to pop out of the recorder. He hauled back against it with all his strength. The book was so heavy, it dragged him along the conveyor for a good three feet before he managed to shuffle it off the belt. It slammed onto the floor, nearly crushing Etherie’s foot.

  “Sorry,” Cole said, out of breath.

  “No harm,” she smiled.

  “Boundary map!” the cowboy snapped. Haberdash buzzed over to the book and flipped the pages until she found it. The map of the Boundarylands was a thick bunch of paper that was rolled into itself and stuffed in between the pages of the book. She pulled it open, found the edge, and unfurled the entire blessed thing. It stretched for eight feet, at least.

  “That’s a lot more detailed than our map,” Cole said, impressed.

  “We strive for perfection,” Haberdash beamed. “Now. Where are we looking?”

  “The Way Station,” said the cowboy.

  “Ah! Excellent. Yes, let’s see. That should be...right here!” She hovered above the map and pointed out the Wellwhich. “Where exactly did your friend appear?”

  The Stranger slid the blood map over to the book, careful to keep his finger pinned to the paper at Polly’s exact former location. Her dot had already disappeared and reappeared a half a dozen times since. “Right here, just off the main gate.”

  “Then let’s see. That puts her in...” Haberdash inspected the larger map. Then she gulped. “Reaper’s Gulch.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, almost imperceptibly, Cole saw the Stranger flinch.

  “Do you know it?” the boy asked.

  The Stranger tugged his hat lower on this brow. “Yeah.” He stood up, folded the map, and slipped it into his pocket. “You can get us there?”

  Haberdash nodded. “I can, only...there’s something you should know first.”

  “Wait.” An idea struck Cole, an idea so obvious, he laughed out loud for not seeing it earlier. The rest of the crew gave him a queer look. He blushed, but pressed on. “The reason we’re here...the whole reason we’re in the Boundarylands...is to find my imaginary friend. He’ll be in your book. Right?”

  The cowboy gave a low whistle. “Not proud to say I let that one slip past me,” he admitted. “You just saved us a heap of trouble.”

  Cole smiled proudly.

  Haberdash returned to the book. “You journeyed into the imagining for an IF? That’s very lovely, dear. Very lovely indeed.” She wiped a tear from her eye. “There aren’t many who’d do so much as give a hankie to an imaginary friend.” She turned to the cowboy. “No offense,” she said quickly.

  The Stranger grunted.

  “What’s his name?” Haberdash asked, turning back to Cole.

  “Broken.” Cole wasn’t sure if his IF was likely to go by that name here, but it was the only name he had for the malformed creature. So he hoped for the best.

  “I have him!” Haberdash cried, having consulted her books. But her voice faltered. Something was wrong.

  “What is it?” Cole asked nervously.

  Haberdash frowned and tugged nervously at her hands. “Oh dear, it’s just that...just that...”

  “Spit it out,” said the Stranger.

  Haberdash sighed. “Your IF is in the Pinch.”

  “Really?” said Cole. “Well, that’s good, right?” The Pinch was one place that would never move on their map; he’d be easy to find there. And they had to get to the Pinch anyway, to get back home.

  But Haberdash shook her head gravely. “I fear it’s very, very bad. There are only two reasons imaginaries end up in the Pinch. Either they’re on official business...and that’s not likely, dear, him being an IF. IFs aren’t given positions of state, you see. It’s not done.”

  “Okay,” Cole said slowly, frowning. “What’s the other reason?”

  The winged creature sighed heavily, her fingers pulling worriedly at the corners of her mouth. “The only other reason for him to be there is…is…”

  “He’s a prisoner,” the Stranger finished.

  Cole started. “Broken is a prisoner?”

  The Stranger and Haberdash nodded in unison. “Has to be,” the cowboy said, troubled. “No other reason for him to be there.”

  “Oh, that’s bad,” Emma observed.

  “Why would he be a prisoner?” Cole demanded.

  The Stranger gritted his teeth. “Knowing the Royal, there don’t need to be a reason. But the fact that he’s an IF is plenty reason enough.”

  “The Royal has harsher views on IFs than most,” Haberdash explained gently.

  Cole took a heavy breath. The trip had just gone from bad to much, much worse. But he shook his head and crossed his arms. “Then we have to save him,” he decided.

  To his surprise, the cowboy nodded. “Yeah. We do.”

  Cole turned to Haberdash. “We’ll go grab Polly, then you can take us to the Pinch.”

  “Ha!” Haberdash snorted. She covered her mouth with both hands. “Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to laugh, and I’m certainly not laughing at you! But the Pinch is locked by far greater keys than mine. I can send you to Reaper’s Gulch, yes. But the Pinch? You’ll have to get there the old fashioned way.”

  “Riding dinosaurs!” Willy cried.

  The others turned to look at him. They blinked. Then they turned back to their conversation.

  “Take us to the Gulch,” the Stranger said. “We’ve no time to waste.” He folded the map, stuck it back under his hat, turned toward the stairs, and ushered the children along before him.

  “Wait, please,” Haberdash pleaded. “I’m trying to tell you—”

  “What?” the cowboy snapped, a little too gruffly.

  Haberdash loo
ked uneasily at the group. “Being from the real world and all, well…it’s just that…it’s just…”

  “Spit it out,” said the cowboy.

  She sighed. “You children are in greater danger than you know.”

  Chapter 5:

  On the Subject of Stranger Danger

  Polly lay flat on her back, staring up at the bright, blazing sun. The fall into this new dream had been disorienting, but that’s not what bothered her as she struggled to catch the breath that had been knocked out of her lungs with the impact. No, it was the fact that her subjects had let her fall in the first place.

  A princess should always be caught.

  She sat up and brushed the desert sand off her arms. “A falling princess should never touch the ground,” she said aloud to any and all who would listen. But as she looked across the barren plain, she realized there was no one around to hear. The desert stretched on and on before her, vast and empty. There were no subjects in this kingdom to catch her. “Well,” she said. “At least they had good reason for letting me fall, then.”

  She grabbed her wand, which she had dropped during her descent. She was glad to see it had made the leap across the lintel. She gave it a good shake. It didn’t seem to be broken. “Please work, please work, please work,” she whispered. She squeezed her eyes shut and pictured a great white horse, a brave and noble steed with an excellent sense of direction that could carry her through the desert in the right direction, whichever way that was. She held the picture in her mind and gave the wand a good flick. The star tip blinked.

  A horse did not appear.

  Polly frowned.

  “I guess I have to walk,” she sighed aloud.

  “Why should you?”

  Polly screeched and bolted to her feet. She whirled around and swung the wand blindly at the voice. Her attack missed the owner of that voice by an easy three feet. She spun with the force of the swing and fell down on her bottom.

  “Careful, now, careful,” said the old man, reaching a hand down to help her. “You’ll ruin your pretty dress.” He was tall, and trim, wearing clothes not unlike the Stranger’s: dusty pants, a white shirt, and a leather vest under a brown knee-length coat, with a brown cowboy hat on his head. But he had a white beard and long white hair. He looked sort of like Cowboy Santa Claus on a diet. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I just happen to have this horse and carriage yonder, and I thought maybe you’d like a ride.”

  Polly squinted against the sunlight. Sure enough, a horse stood a few hundred yards away, tethered to an old cart. “Are you my new servant?” she asked suspiciously, holding her wand at the ready.

  The old man smiled. “Well. Not exactly.” He removed his hat and brushed the dust from it. “What’re you doing out here, in this place? All alone?”

  “Inspecting my kingdom,” Polly said, her nose held high in the air. This was a lie, of course, and her parents often warned her against lying, but she didn’t want to tell this stranger that she had accidentally fallen into the desert from another dream. It was too embarrassing. “And I don’t need my friends to help,” she added. Inside, she was actually beginning to panic because none of the other children had followed her into this new world, and across the lintel behind the white-haired man, where the floating rock platters used to be, all sorts of strange imaginations were now flashing past. But not one of them contained a familiar face.

  Still, she didn’t want to show weakness.

  “I’m sure you don’t,” the old man smiled. “Well, if you’re inspecting things, you’ll want to see town.”

  Town? There was a town? All she could see was desert. “Yes,” she nodded. “Take me to the town.”

  The old man placed one hand over his heart and gestured toward the carriage with the hat in the other. “Right this way.”

  “My friends will be coming, too,” she said as they walked, eyeing the imaginations as they zoomed past the lintel. “Pretty soon. You’d better have room for them.”

  The man smiled. Sunlight glinted off his gleaming white teeth. “Oh, yes, my dear. There’s plenty of room for all of your friends.”

  Polly nodded. “Good.”

  “What’s your name, child?” the old man asked, leading her toward the cart.

  “You may call me Princess Polly,” she decided. “Or Princess, for short.”

  “I’ll do that,” the old man grinned. He pushed his hat back down on his head and helped Polly up into the back of the cart.

  “And I’ll call you Servant Number Two,” she said, climbing up into the rickety wooden box. “I already have a Servant Number One.”

  “You can call me what you like,” the old man said, his eyes flashing dangerously. He shook out his hands, and blueish-white lightning crackled to life between them. Polly gasped and tumbled back in surprise. The man reached down and brought his crackling fingers to her temples. The electric current shot through her, fizzling across her body. Her eyes rolled up into her head, and the world became black, shot with explosions of red.

  Just before she lost consciousness, she heard his raspy voice say, “But most people call me Zeus.”

  Chapter 6:

  On the Subject of Bonds, Familial and Metal

  When Polly came to, the world so dark that she blinked hard three times just to make sure her eyes were open. Gone were the desert sands, the bright sunlight, the horse and buggy, and the electrified old man; she now lay on something that felt like stone, in a world of total darkness, with a steady drip-drip-drip echoing against the walls around her. “Hey!” she cried.

  Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! said her echo.

  Somehow, she didn’t think this was the old man’s “town.”

  She struggled to sit up, and heard a loud scraping of metal as she did. When she tried to scoot forward, something hard bit into both of her wrists, and she realized that there were chains attached to her arms. She cried out and pulled her hands forward, trying to break free, but the chains were fixed tightly to the stone wall behind her.

  She was stuck.

  She was a prisoner.

  “Help!” she screamed into the darkness.

  Help! Help! Help! Help! the darkness replied.

  Polly’s lip trembled. She knew the rules of being a princess. Princesses were strong. They were regal. They were prepared for any situation.

  Which meant that maybe Polly wasn’t a princess, because what she did next was cry.

  Then a bolt of lightning burst into the space, washing her prison in pale blue light. The lightning struck a small stack of tinder, which instantly caught fire. The orange and yellow flames rose, throwing warm light on the face of the old man, who sat on the other side of the kindling and set to work stacking full logs on top.

  “Sorry about the chains,” he said. “Nothing personal. Just didn’t want you pitching over the side in your sleep.” He nodded off to Polly’s right, and in the glow of the fire, she could now see a deep chasm open up just a few feet from where she sat. Zeus stood up and crossed over to where she sat fettered to the stone wall. He crouched down and pulled a key from his pocket. “If I let you loose, you think you can keep yourself from falling in?” Polly nodded vigorously. Zeus set to work unlocking her shackles. The chains fell away from her wrists, and Polly scurried back to the corner of the cave. “No need to be scared,” he said, slipping the key back into his pocket. “You’re safe enough here. I’ve no wish to harm a child. I have children of my own, you know. Several dozen.” He sat down and crossed his knees. With the fire behind him, Polly could only see him in silhouette, and his outline looked strangely childlike. “Caused me no small amount of trouble, most of them. But a father’s usually helpless, isn’t he?” Zeus gave her a wry grin. “I bet your father’s helpless against you, child.”

  Polly sniffled. She didn’t know who this person was, or how he could make lightning with his hands, or why he was
being nice to her even though keeping her prisoner was a mean thing to do. “I want to go home, please,” she said, her voice small.

  “You actually remind me of one of them. My daughter Aphrodite.” He laughed. “Headstrong, and the queen of everything.”

  “I’m a princess,” Polly corrected him, rubbing the snot away from her nose.

  “There’s little difference, except time.” Zeus rocked back on his haunches for a few moments, lost in thought. Then he shrugged, stood up, and brushed the dust off of the seat of his pants. “Mind the drop, there. And sit tight. I’ll have food brought up to you. And I advise you not to try to leave the cave.”

  “Why?” asked Polly, her bottom lip quivering.

  Zeus flashed her another smile, and young as she was, she still recognized the danger in it. “Because,” he said, turning to leave, “the seven-headed monster guarding the door wouldn’t like it.”

  Chapter 7:

  “The Tooth, the Whole Tooth, and Nothing But the Tooth”

  Haberdash closed the trapdoor to the Recording Room and frowned as she considered her guests. “Does anyone else know that you brought real children into the Boundarylands?”

  The cowboy squinted warily. “Some do.”

  Haberdash sighed. She flew over to her table and fell into a chair. “Then it’s probably already too late.”

  “Too late for what?” Cole asked. Emma, sensing what her parents called “grown-up talk,” scooted closer to Cole and snuck her hand into his. He squeezed it reassuringly.

  “I’d rather not say in front of the children,” she said to the cowboy.

  “Speak freely,” the man said.