Marny (7 page)

Distantly, he heard the ping
of an alarm. Crap. Emmie would be home from school in ten minutes.
If she found him simming, she’d tattle to the parents out of
jealousy. After all, who
wouldn’t
want to stay home from high school and game all
day? It didn’t matter that he was keeping up in his classes. Mom
and Dad would come down hard on him for lying.

Nyx keyed his character back to the village
inn that was his in-game home and hastily logged out. He pulled off
the gaming helm and sim-gloves, then hopped up out of the
chair.

Something poked his thigh, like there was a
pin in the pocket of his sweatpants. Wouldn’t that be just like
Emmie, to sabotage his clothes? He could tell she thought he was
totally faking being sick. Curses on perceptive little sisters.

He perched on the side of his bed and reached
into his pocket. Something cool and slick met his fingers and he
caught his breath in disbelief. It couldn’t be.

Carefully, he drew the item out of his pocket
and stared at it. A perfectly formed copper leaf. From Feyland. The
back of his neck prickled with disbelief.

Nyx looked from the sim system to the leaf
cradled in his palm, then back again, his mind insisting it
couldn’t be true. Things couldn’t appear in real life from out of a
video game.

He swallowed, feeling dizzy. Was he going
crazy?

He set the leaf on his bedside table. It
looked strange and magical beside his tablet and half-empty can of
energy drink.

Downstairs, the front door
slammed. Emmie was home. He wanted to call her in to look at the
leaf, but she’d only laugh at it, saying he was trying to hoax her
again. He rubbed his eyes, sudden exhaustion crashing over him.
Maybe he really
was
getting sick after all.

With a last glance at the magical leaf, he
curled up on his side and pulled his covers over him. It would be
gone when he woke up—the whole thing just a fever dream.

“Nyx! Ohmigod, wake up.”

Emmie’s voice, her hand on his shoulder
shaking him insistently.

“Go ’way,” he mumbled, trying to roll away
from her annoying presence.

“Open your eyes. Please!”

The panicky note in his sister’s voice
penetrated his foggy brain. Nyx forced his eyes open.

His sleepiness shocked away like he’d been
doused with a bucket of cold water. Slowly, he sat up and stared at
his room.

His bedroom. His forest. Oh yeah.

The pale-trunked trees started by his bedside
table and faded away into the misty distance. Bright flowers
bloomed in clumps at their roots, and orange-winged butterflies
danced in and out of shafts of sunlight.

“I told you,” he said to Emmie.

Wide-eyed, she sank down to sit beside him on
the bed.

“It can’t be real,” she whispered. “I thought
you’d just… you know. Made a really prime MR simulation.”

“What changed your mind?”

“Just look at it.” She glanced around. “I
came in to ask you a question about my data homework, and thought
you’d left your projectors on. But then I felt one of the trees.
Really felt it. And a drop of water splashed on my face, from a
leaf.”

She brought her fingers to her cheek.

“If it helps, I didn’t believe it at first,
either,” he said, glancing at the copper leaf gleaming on his
bedside table. “This is the second time it’s appeared.”

Emmie took a deep breath. “It even smells
like a forest.”

She was right. The air smelled like wet soil
after a rain, with a faint underlay of crushed herbs.

A nearby clump of green-leaved bushes shook,
and she grabbed his arm.

“Relax,” he told her.

He couldn’t reassure her that the forest
wouldn’t hurt them, but he had a pretty good idea of what was
hiding in the shrubbery. Luckily, he had a half-eaten protein bar
around somewhere, probably under a pile of clothes. He peeled
Emmie’s fingers off his arms and slid to the edge of the bed.

“Wait,” she said. “You can’t just get up and
go in there.”

Nyx ignored her. He knelt on the floor and
started rummaging through his clothes. The flash of a foil wrapper
caught his eye. Tossing his armful of laundry aside, he grabbed the
bar and stripped off the wrapper, then moved to the perimeter of
the lush green moss.

“Come out,” he called, waving the bar. “Tasty
treats.”

“Seriously?” Emmie didn’t
sound scared anymore, or awed—which meant the usual sarcasm
couldn’t be far behind. “You’re trying to coax some creature out of
the forest that
shouldn’t even exist in
your bedroom
with a stale bar?”

“Shut up,” he suggested.

She narrowed her eyes at him, but at least
she stopped talking.

After a moment, a pointy-nosed golden head
popped out of one of the bushes. Nyx smiled, but kept his hand
steady. Cautiously, the mouselike creature crept out of hiding. It
paused and tilted its head, and Emmie made a little cooing
noise.

“Here.” Nyx broke a piece off the bar and
reached out, setting it partway between him and the creature.

In a flash of gold fur, it darted forward,
grabbed the hunk of protein bar, and disappeared back into the
bushes.

“That was sooo cute,” Emmie said. “I hope
it’s not like the attack bunny in that old movie Mom and Dad like
so much.”

“I saw this creature before.” Nyx settled
cross-legged on the floor, keeping one eye on the place the golden
mouse had disappeared. “I don’t think it’s dangerous.”

“Um.” His sister picked at a loose thread on
his coverlet. “So, I guess you were trying to tell me about this
before. I should have listened better.”

It was as close to an apology as he would
get.

“Hey, it’s pretty hard to wrap your brain
around.” He glanced into the misty depths of the forest. “It’s like
those books where kids walk into an enchanted closet and emerge
into a magic land or something.”

“But why us?”

“Us? Excuse me, this
is
my
room.”

Emmie rolled her eyes, but her usual snarky
expression faded as she looked back at the woods. “Did you, like,
pick up a magic coin or meet a sorcerer on your way home from
school?”

“Not that I know of.”

He wasn’t about to try and explain, not when
he himself had only a shaky grasp of what was going on.

The clank of the garage door opening vibrated
through the house.

“Oh, crap.” He got to his feet. “Dad’s home
early. What time is it?”

“Time for me to run interference.” Emmie
hopped off his bed. “I’ll go talk at him while you do something
about this. You know he’s going to want to check on you, you big
faker.”

“I had reasons.” Nyx raised his brows and
swept a hand out at the forest.

“Well, undo them or whatever.” She hurried to
the door and opened it, then looked back over her shoulder.
“Nyx?”

“You better get down there.”

“If that mouse thing comes back, can I have
it as a pet?”

“No. Now move it.”

“Emerald? Onyx?” Their dad’s voice drifted up
the stairs.

Emmie slipped out, closing the door behind
her, and Nyx glanced around. The forest was way too big to conceal.
No way he could even drape the closest trees with blankets—the idea
was ludicrous.

“Here.” He chucked the rest of the bar into
the mouse’s bush, and was rewarded with a squeak of gratitude.

Muffled by his door, he could hear Emmie
talking to Dad. Their voices were getting closer. Dammit. He really
better be right about this.

Heart racing, Nyx picked up the copper leaf.
It was cool and polished under his fingers. He grasped it in both
hands, closed his eyes, and snapped it in half.

The sound of it breaking was a tiny click,
but it seemed to shake all the way through him. He gasped, like
he’d been punched in the stomach, and opened his eyes.

“There you are, buddy,” his dad said, pushing
open his door. “Wow, you really don’t look good. Can I bring you an
upchuck bowl?”

“No, thanks.” Nyx clenched his hands around
the remains of the leaf and staggered over to his bed. “I’ll just
rest.”

“Hang in there. I think your mom is bringing
some fizzy soda home. That might help.”

Nyx nodded and lay down, giving his plain old
walls a grateful glance.

At least he’d been right in his suspicions
that the leaf was connecting Feyland to the real world.
Somehow.

“Is he okay?” Emmie peeked her head in, but
she didn’t even bother glancing at him. She scanned his room,
managing to look both relieved and disappointed at the same
time.

“We’ll let him rest,” their dad said. “Out
you go, squeak.”

“Don’t call me that.” Emmie withdrew, Dad
right behind her.

Nyx exhaled shakily, then uncurled his
fingers. Instead of shattered bits of copper, his palms were coated
with dust. Even as he watched, it seemed to float away, mingling
with the dust motes in his room.

Head pounding, he sat on his bed and tried to
make sense of the whole afternoon.

Somehow, he’d brought a leaf from inside a
video game into the real world. Where it had conjured a magical
forest to life in his bedroom. Then the leaf had disappeared into a
handful of ashes when he’d broken it, causing the enchanted trees
to fade.

Yep, that pretty much summed it up. He rubbed
his forehead. Too bad he had no idea what this all meant, or what
to do about it.

But over the weeks, as he figured out how to
bring various items out of Feyland and conjure up different
environments—the silvery forest, a swamp, rolling meadows filled
with flowers—a plan had formed.

This was magic, and he wanted to share it
with the world in a way that people could enjoy.

“You’ll be lying to them,” Emmie had
said.

“Nobody will believe the truth. And if they
did, they’d just want to monetize it.”

“The way you’re planning to do.” His sister’s
voice was dry.

“Yeah, but I’m not exploiting it—just
delivering it in a way that will cover my costs.”

Emmie had folded her arms
and given him a sour look. “What if it turns out to be dangerous?
How are you going to explain
that
?”

“I’ve had that forest in and out of my room
for nearly two months now, and nothing has happened.” He’d even
gotten comfortable sleeping in its presence.

“What about that pile of sticks you told me
about?”

Nyx had woken up one morning to find a small
heap of twigs and branches in the middle of his bedroom floor. When
he’d gone to pick them up, they’d disappeared. Not into silvery
dust, either, just a shimmer in the air, and—poof!—gone.

“They were harmless, and it never happened
again. I shouldn’t even have told you about it.”

“But I’m your partner.” She had the stubborn
look on her face that meant trouble.

“You’re my
employee
. Big
difference.”

Actually, she was somewhere in between. She’d
been a surprisingly good sounding board to bounce ideas off, and
when the juice/espresso bar idea came up, she’d convinced him to
let her manage it.

“You’ll be too busy running the place,” she’d
said. “You don’t want to be trapped behind a counter, making
lattes. Besides, I’ll have fun, and you’ll pay me well.”

“I hate it when you make sense.”

She’d stuck her tongue out at him, and they
had a deal. When he got his plan up and running, she’d be a part of
it.

And finally, nearly three months from when
the enchanted forest had first appeared in his bedroom, he’d found
the place that would become Club Mysteria. A huge warehouse with a
set of rooms he could fix up to live in, plus a couple more for
offices. An entire city block, waiting for the magic to begin.

“This is perfect. Let’s go sign the lease,”
Nyx told the stunned-looking real-estate agent. “Did I mention I’m
paying cash?”

***