The Color of Fear (15 page)

But then it opened its mouth. Two rows of polished fangs glistened clearly. A frothy glob of saliva dribbled from its mouth, pooling on top of the dirt.

“Snow, have you gone mad?” Rapunzel was livid. “This Blood-Eyed would like nothing more than to tear you up, limb from limb. I cannot allow you to do this. I forbid it.”

Snow White’s chest heaved. “This creature is in pain!”

Beauty pointed her finger. “Snow, if you open that trap, he’ll kill us all!”

Natalie shot a wide-eyed, meaningful glance at Caitlin. Caitlin shrugged nervously. She wanted to get out of there, fast. Except there was
another
part of her …

The wolf writhed as the metal clamps dug into its bone with a crunch.

“We can’t just leave him here to suffer,” Caitlin said, regretting the words as they left her mouth.

Cinderella clucked her tongue. “If we don’t kill it, it will kill us. At best, he’ll take a chunk out of one of our legs. One of us will wind up a Blood-Eyed, just like the rest of them.”

Snow looked up at Rapunzel. “I’m not leaving until you help me open this trap.”

A small pack of vultures appeared in the sky above the forest canopy.

Rapunzel squinted at the sky. “They smell blood.”

“Don’t vultures eat
dead
things?” Caitlin wondered aloud.

Natalie nodded. “Gyps bengalensis. White-rumped vultures. They eat carcasses.”

“And aren’t you all
technically
dead … ?” Caitlin said.

“We must leave. Now,” Rapunzel ordered. “Snow, pronto.”

Snow huffed stubbornly. “Not until you help me free this wolf.”

“Tenacious as a Taurus,” Cindy said, shaking her head.

“I’m afraid I’m on Snow’s side,” Caitlin said.

Cindy popped a squat next to the trap. “Okay, I’m in.” She eyed the group. “But as soon as we open the trap, this canine ghoul will be on us like ivy on oak. Bread on butter. Flame on a wick. Fleas on a—”

“Okay, we get it,” Rapunzel said.

Cindy pointed to Rapunzel’s head.

“I’ll need one of your luxurious long locks, pretty princess.”

Rapunzel loosened a braid and handed it to her.

Cindy tied it around the top jaw of the clamp.

“We’ll pull it open from a distance. That way, we’ll have a solid head start when we run for our ever-lovin’ lives.”

Rapunzel pointed to a tree at the edge of the woods.

“Caitlin, Natalie, I need you two over there, please. Now. These wolves run fast. That leg wound might not be enough to slow him down.”

After tying a final knot, Cindy let out the line of braid and trotted with the girls to the edge of the woods. She handed the tail end of the rope to Snow. “You do the honors.”

Snow wound it twice around her hand. She tightened her grip.

“Get ready to run,” Cindy said.

Caitlin knelt, racing-block style. Natalie too. Rapunzel, Cindy and Beauty crouched forward, one leg in front, arms swung back like jet wings.

Snow pulled the rope of hair. Though her face reddened with the effort, the clamp only opened a quarter of the way. “Someone help.”

Cindy scooted over, taking hold of Snow’s hands. Caitlin felt adrenalin rushing through her veins. She twiddled her fingers. Tilted her head right, left. She was itching to run.

Together, Cindy and Snow pulled … and pulled … and pulled …

The clamp snapped open.

The wolf let out a hair-raising yowl!

It slowly stood on its hind legs. Like a human! Then it shook off all the dirt.

“It’s him!” Cindy screamed. “The Big Bad Wolf.”

He leered at them with narrowed red eyes.

Caitlin had never seen such a horrific-looking werewolf in all her life!

They took off, running for their lives, and leaving behind a whirlwind of leaves and a billowy cloud of dirt.

In the undersize dilapidated
village, Jack held the small, blue bottle in his hand. Alfonzo the Frog Prince watched impatiently.

“Save the toast for the wedding, amigo. We must hurry if we are to catch up with your friends.”

Jack took a big swig. His face contorted as the liquid struck his taste buds. Bile was less bitter. He swigged again. And again. Then he chugged the whole wretched bottle dry.

“That should do it,” he said. “Hmmm. I’m not thirsty anymore either.”

Jack’s left hand suddenly cramped in morbid pain.

“Whoa—that was fast.”

A moment later his arm began contracting into his shoulder. It shrank perversely quickly. It felt to him as though the limb was being crushed in a vise.

“Bloody painful!”

His other arm cramped in racking pain, and he almost wailed like a babe as it shrunk before his eyes. Next went his right leg. The stabbing pain robbed him of breath. This was followed by the contraction of his left leg; it felt like his thighbone was being sawed off.

He tipped over onto his side from the weight of his suddenly oversize torso, feeling like a mutant. Finally, the muscles in his stomach twisted into a knot so tight he almost heaved up the previous night’s dinner. Then his torso popped into proportion, causing him to break out in convulsions and a cold sweat. A moment later the convulsions seized. His body temperature warmed.

“I was worried there for a second.” He stood up slowly and examined his new, ten-inch-high form, still feeling a bit wobbly. “Think I might’ve swallowed too much.”

“Not at all, amigo,” Alfonzo replied.

The small frog now appeared like quite a large one to Jack, since they were almost the same size. Alfonzo’s eyes were as big as Jack’s fists; they bulged from his head and their glazed surface reminded him of the eyes of some exotic, reptilian alien.

Alfonzo smiled. “If you were any smaller, perhaps you’d be tempting to eat.” He waggled his long tongue at Jack. “Ha, ha, ha. But I’d never do such a thing. For I am a frog of honor.”

“Now what, mate?” Jack asked.

Alfonzo crouched. “On my back. And please make sure that sword of yours doesn’t puncture my hind legs.”

Jack climbed up onto Alfonzo’s slimy back and held tightly to a meaty fold of neck flesh. The Frog Prince’s skin was secreting mucus, so Jack tried to dry it up with his sleeve.

“Stop, amigo! You’ll suffocate me. Frogs breathe through the moisture on their skin.”

Jack winced. “My apologies.” He spit into his palms, rubbed them together, and smeared the lube over Alfonzo’s neck and back.

“Ahh, much better,” the frog announced as he inhaled fresh air.

Together, the two of them hurdled over the crumbling wall and bounded out of town at breakneck speed.

“Good news, amigo,” the Frog Prince announced. “I smell sweet sap in the air. Delectable plants and flowers await us just up ahead!”

Caitlin, Natalie, and the
zombie princesses stood at a narrow entrance to what seemed to be an endless forest. Streaks of white sunlight penetrated its tall canopy of tangled branches, which filtered falling sunlight and turned it blue as it spilled into the forest.

The expanse of trees stretched far and wide in both directions—there was no apparent way to skirt the woods. The woodlands were so thick, in fact, that when Caitlin tried to look between the tree trunks, all she saw was a mass of bark bathed in blue.

Some trees had retained a bit of their green, though most were pale and covered in decrepit, bone-dry leaves.

A couple of hand-painted signs hung from a wooden post right where the path they had followed from the “doody” footbridge stopped at the tree line. The sign on top of the wooden post read “Zeno’s Forest
.”
Below that were smaller signs shaped like arrows. Each arrow pointed to a different destination:

The Enchanted Forest

The Emerald City

Camelot

Neverland

Wonderland

Practically every kingdom from every fairy tale ever told was represented by its own arrow.

But there were no paths leading
through
the forest.

No paths
?
Huh
?

“How are we supposed to know how to get to where we want to go if there’s no path to lead us there?” asked Caitlin as her palms moistened and her chest tightened. Just the thought of getting lost in some unknown, isolated forest was enough to arouse overwhelming dread.

Rapunzel pointed to the arrows. “All these kingdoms are interconnected by this forest. We can journey through it to any place quickly, no matter how far away it is.”

Caitlin held the air in her lungs for a prolonged moment. Then she breathed out slowly. She was glad the journey would be quick, but she scratched her head. “How’s that possible?”

Snow cracked a smile. “In Zeno’s Forest, the farther away your destination, the quicker you arrive.”

How odd is that!

Natalie perked up visibly. “Zeno, huh? Is this forest related to Zeno’s paradox? And the tale of the tortoise and the hare?”

Showoff.

“Who—or what—is a Zeno?” Caitlin asked in a tart tone.

“Greek philosopher,” Girl Wonder responded. “He tried to demonstrate that all motion is an illusion.”

Whatever!

Cinderella cast a hard glance at Rapunzel and motioned with her head toward Caitlin. “Better warn her,” she said.

Caitlin stiffened. “Warn me about what?”

An uneasy look passed between the four princesses.

Snow put her arm around Caitlin’s shoulder.

“There’s something you need to know before you step foot inside this forest.”

Caitlin blinked rapidly and nodded.

“You must have your destination firmly planted in your mind—
before
you enter.”

“Why?”

“Because if you don’t, you run the risk of not being able to move once you’re among the trees.”

Rapunzel leaned in between Snow and Caitlin, her eyes expressing caution. “You could get stuck in Zeno’s Forest. For hundreds of years!”

Caitlin’s heart fluttered in her chest. She recalled the time she had gotten trapped in a crowded walkway when exiting a baseball stadium. She was eight, so she couldn’t see over the heads of the adults towering over her. The ramp out of the stadium had become congested, people jamming up at the exit. The crowd literally stopped moving. Caitlin was trapped. Stuck. It lasted a good ten minutes, but felt like eternity. That was one of the first times she felt claustrophobic and panicky.

Rapunzel signaled to Snow White, who strolled over to the signpost. Beneath it was a plaque with writing carved into the wood:
How to Navigate Zeno’s Forest!

Caitlin leaned in close to read it.

The farther your destination, the faster you arrive. Which means the closer your destination, the longer it takes to reach. Which means if you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll never arrive at your next stop.

Caitlin grasped the gist of it. Her next step would be so close it might take eons to get there, based on the laws of logic that governed Zeno’s Forest. But one question kept nagging at the back of her mind, so she decided to ask.

“How does the forest know where I’m going?”

Rapunzel winked sweetly at her girlfriends, then turned to Caitlin. “What’s your world made of?”

“Ooh, I know!” said Natalie, jerking her arm in the air as if she was raising her hand in the back row of a crowded classroom. “Particles called
atoms
.”

Rapunzel’s eyebrow curved up sharply. “Now, what do you suppose this universe is made of?”

Girl Wonder suddenly seemed confounded by the question.

A rare occurrence, indeed.

Caitlin thought about it for a moment. The book
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
came from the mind of Charles Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll.

Cindy then discreetly pointed to the odd, brain-shaped sun.

“Particles of imagination?” Caitlin answered, positively unsure of herself.

Rapunzel smiled generously. “Excellent, Caitlin.”

Even Natalie seemed impressed.

Rapunzel placed her hand on Caitlin’s shoulder. “So your imagination and Zeno’s Forest are made of the same stuff. The forest always knows where you are and where you want to go.”