The Color of Fear (30 page)

Jack’s body sprung to alert. He selected one bean and placed it on the ground beneath the wormhole. Then he scooped out a handful of rich, black soil from the rucksack.

“What’s that?” Caitlin asked.

“Dirt from Zeno’s Forest.”

He flipped his hand over and clumps of moist, black soil fell atop the bean. Jack patted it into a soft mound.

“If Zeno’s Forest can transport someone long distances uncommonly fast, the soil should prompt a slow-germinating plant to grow rather quickly. If given the intent.”

Caitlin smiled hopefully.

“Besides,” Jack said, “if we can’t bring the bean to the forest, why not bring the forest to the bean?”

They stared at the mound of dirt. Nothing was happening.

Snow pulled out her bota bag and splashed water on the soil.

Not a moment later, a tiny sprout curled and poked up from the dirt. It immediately began to thicken and expand and twist and climb skyward. The beauty of the unnatural sight took Caitlin’s breath away. It was as if she were watching time-lapse photography happen with her very eyes.

Rapunzel broke into a smile. “It’s working!”

In the distance, Caitlin heard the approaching thunder of stampeding feet. She looked back and cupped her hand over her mouth. Over the horizon, a cloud of dust whirled, and a sliver of orange sky was creeping up behind it. From that dust emerged the headlong rush of raging, living-dead cannibals. Like a herd of snorting buffalo, they charged toward the village.

“They’re relentless,” Caitlin muttered, shaking her head. “Why don’t they just stop chasing us? The queen isn’t controlling them anymore.”

“Maybe because you have the scepter,” Rapunzel said.

Natalie lunged at her, grunting, “Hungry!”

Snow and Beauty tightened their restraints.

Beauty gestured toward Natalie. “Any minute now, we’ll have a legion of these to contend with.”

“We can’t fight off a thousand ghouls,” Rapunzel said.

Caitlin stamped her foot as she inspected the scepter. “There’s no On-Off switch on this thing,” she said.

“Try something—
anything
,” Rapunzel said.

Caitlin’s hand trembled as she examined the scepter from top to bottom.

“Impossible!” she grunted. “There’s no way to get inside of it.” She looked at Rapunzel. “Can you try?”

“Only a human hand can wield the scepter.”

The rim of the sun dawned on the horizon.

Amethyst flitted over to Caitlin. “Time is running out, young lady. Do you see the scepter?”

That’s an odd question.

“Of course I see the scepter.”

“But do you
see
the scepter?”

She shook her head. Blinked.

Amethyst gazed into her eyes.

“Do you recognize it?”

Caitlin stared intently. “Not really.”

Caitlin felt the heaviness of everyone’s eyes upon her.

What is Amethyst seeing that I’m not?

Caitlin checked her arms, hands. The zombie affliction advanced rapidly as the sun crept higher. Her arms were pale as a pearl and her skin was cracking like eggshells. She could tell the rims of her eyes were blackening. Caitlin was quickly becoming the authentic version of her clay-bank zombie disguise.

She glanced toward the eastern sky. The sun was a quarter risen already.

“It’s time to let go, Caitlin,” Amethyst said.

Her neck stiffened.

“Let go? Let go of
what
?”

Amethyst unfolded his vast wings. “The magic.”

She swallowed hard.

“There is no magic, my dear young lady. There’s nothing supernatural out there in the moonlit mist that will protect you. No spells. No sorcery.”

Her legs felt heavy.

“What is there, then?”

“There’s Caitlin.” Amethyst flapped his bright-purple wings and rose in the air. “And within Caitlin is her will to choose the Red or Violet Spectrum and in turn, to choose the kind of world she wants to inhabit. But when you wait for magic to conjure up the world you seek, you hand all that power away.”

An uncontrollable rush of tears rolled down her cheeks as she looked at the scepter once more.

Something indescribable startled her.

It was as if a shuttered window had opened somewhere inside of her. Her sky-blue eyes grew bright and wide like a June sunrise. A realization stuck, and it was unmistakable. A flash of brilliant clarity, a crystal-clear, razor-sharp image, and it suddenly shined in her mind’s eye.

Caitlin
saw
the scepter.

For what it really is.

Then a memory.

Of what it
was
.

All dots connected—clean, crisp.

The scepter was
her
magic wand!

Or as Natalie called it, “that dumb lucky charm.” Caitlin had bought it to help her cope with her fears and to avoid the devastating truth she could not face.

Somehow the magic wand had wound up here. And it had been blown up to life-size. She had just been too afraid earlier to recognize it. Her fear had gotten in the way yet again.

Since she was a child, she had put all of her hope and faith in a worthless ornament. It became her crutch and an excuse to deny heartrending truth.

Rapunzel interrupted her thoughts, pointing frantically toward the horizon. “The sun is three-quarters high, Caitlin.”

Amethyst whispered in her ear. “The sun always shines, Caitlin; even when clouds obscure it. Instead of chasing the light, find the clouds hiding it.”

The herd of Blood-Eyed zombies began flooding the streets of the village.

Caitlin drew a deep breath.

The eyes of Amethyst, Jack, and the zombie princesses suddenly glazed the color of pink as the sun rose higher on the horizon. They were turning.

Caitlin hadn’t been able to figure out how she had managed to overcome all the frightening obstacles she had encountered in this strange universe. Before this day, she’d always been paralyzed by such daunting fears.

Now she knew.

The color spectrum.

It shined red, constantly urging her to occupy herself with herself, to worry about her own fears and anxiety
.
But it shimmered violet when she repelled the red and got busy assisting others
.

The
clouds
weren’t her fears.

The
clouds
were her obsessive concern for herself. When she went to the aid of others, and felt
their
pain, her debilitating fears dissipated.

Which is exactly what she needed to do now. The time had come to free her new friends and her sister from this cruel affliction.

With all eyes on her, Caitlin walked gallantly over to a large granite boulder that lay in the center of the town square.

She gripped the glowing scepter with both hands.

She lifted her arms high, as if preparing to swing a sledgehammer …

And then Caitlin Fletcher smashed the top of the scepter down hard on the rock with all her might.

The glass dome shattered.

The ground thundered and quaked.

Swirling sparkles of energetic color twinkled and sparked with electricity. Luminous streaks of swirling light spun up to the sun like a swarm of colorful fireflies.

The Blood-Eyed zombies stopped in their tracks.

They looked up. “Oooh.”

A rainbow surged through the sky. The biggest, widest rainbow that Caitlin, or anyone else for that matter, had ever seen.

The zombies stared, their drooling mouths agape. “Aaah.”

This rainbow did not beckon just out of reach, high up in a distant sky, but instead came raining down all over them, like crystal-covered gumdrops of color from the sky.

The air cooled and filled with luminous mists of yellow, orange, green, blue, indigo, and violet. The colors fell upon the people and creatures and plants and flowers.

Leaves filled with green and stretched their fresh faces toward the revitalized sun. Flowers stood erect.

Blades of withered brown grass were immediately renewed with life and waved bright green.

Black autumn foliage found its true colors of red, pink, yellow, purple, and brown.

One by one, the gleaming, blood-red eyes of the zombies faded. Eye colors began to transmute to sapphire blues and emerald greens and golden browns and lavender purples. Caitlin had never seen such exotic eye colors before … except in fairy tales.

And though all the ghouls’ flesh remained pale, they all reclaimed their internal beauty and grace, which shined luminously through their zombified exteriors.

Natalie was not going to find her light here, though, Caitlin knew. The sisters required direct sunlight from their own world to heal.

Instinctively, Natalie scrambled like a monkey up the ever-thickening beanstalk that had grown well up past the portal. Caitlin was overjoyed that her sister was on her way home. But Caitlin knew it wasn’t time for her to return just yet. The truth was still waiting for her.

She smiled warmly at Amethyst. Then Jack. She broke down crying when her eyes found Rapunzel. And Snow. And Beauty. They all wept.

When Caitlin had finally recognized the scepter, a truth had surfaced. The one that had devastated a vulnerable, inconsolable young girl.

Was she ready to confront it?

She wasn’t. But Caitlin had found new courage when she helped others overcome their own pain. Her sibling. Her new friends. And so now she would help one more person …

“Where is she?” Caitlin asked as she turned to Amethyst.

He spread his wings. With his left, he pointed
behind
Caitlin.

She turned.

Everything seemed out of focus. Blurred. Caitlin rubbed her eyes. Out of the shapeless blur emerged a razor-sharp … Queen of Hearts!

She walked toward Caitlin as if in slow motion. Her arms were poised to strike, fingers fixed like claws. “You shattered my scepter!”

“Yes. But it was always
mine
.”

“Who. Are. You?”

Caitlin laughed and cried at the same time. Her heart pounded as stinging tears fell from her eyes. “Take off your red glasses,” Caitlin said. “And come see who I am.”

The queen laughed incredulously. “No need, for I can sense you. You are rebellious. And obviously dangerous.”

She’s sensing me through those enchanted glasses! She’s perceiving the opposite!

Caitlin suddenly realized what she had to do. She searched deep for a place untouched and raw. As fragile as a dry, crisp leaf. A dim flame of violet-blue suddenly flared in scintillating brilliance inside her.

And then Caitlin harnessed all of that emotion and yelled.

“I hate you! Do you hear me? I
hate
you. I don’t ever want to see you again. Ever! You are dead to me!”

A tear rolled out from under the red glasses of the queen.

My God! It’s working!

The queen raised her right arm to her face. With two fingers she removed the cursed red glasses, unmasking her face.

The queen let out an anguished scream that cut through Caitlin and resounded through the kingdom.

The queen recoiled.

She clutched her face and shielded her eyes.

Caitlin composed herself.

“Mom … Mommy … It’s me. Look … Please, look!”

Evelyn Fletcher froze.

Her hands came away from her face. But her eyes remained tightly closed. She seemed almost frightened to turn toward the voice … but she did.

Her head tilted to one side. Her eyes opened slowly. She squinted, as though the brightness of truth had touched her eyes and brought with it a great pain. She blinked like a newborn infant seeing the world for the very first time. As if seeing the world right-side up and true.

Her green eyes found Caitlin. Evelyn Fletcher was a strikingly beautiful woman, despite her current heart-shaped hairdo.

Wisps of color continued to descend from the rainbow, showering the world with light. Life returned to her mother’s eyes. So did a gleaming spark of awareness and the luminous light of love stolen from her by the enchanted eyeglasses.

“Oh my goodness … dear God … Caitlin … my precious Caitlin … ”

Caitlin Rose Fletcher rushed into her mother’s arms. Evelyn Fletcher seized her daughter. They squeezed and hugged one another tightly and deeply as they sobbed and wept uncontrollably. Her mother then leaned back to behold her daughter, tenderly brushing away the wet from her cheeks, caressing her forehead, laughing, crying, and again pulling Caitlin close—so very close. Caitlin prayed that all of this was real.

Amethyst pulled a hanky from a pouch. He dabbed his misty eyes and said, “Sorry to break up this long-overdue reunion, but the portal is almost closed.”

Caitlin squeezed her mom. “What happened to you?”

Evelyn Fletcher spoke through her sobs and laughter. “I remember that you bought the wand. To help you cope with your fears. It hurt me deeply to see you suffer. We were in London. On your birthday. I went to visit the grave of your grandfather—to ask for his help. I brought the wand. I also stopped at the grave of Lewis Carroll.”

“You mean Charles Dodgson.”

Evelyn Fletcher laughed through her tears. “Yes, I mean Charles Dodgson. Honey, I read you
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
every night. You couldn’t get enough of it. I asked him for help as well, to give you the strength and creativity and conviction to overcome your challenges without having to rely on a toy wand. A strong wind came and knocked the wand from my hand. It landed on top of his grave.” Evelyn Fletcher shook her head. “And that’s all I can remember. I feel as though I’ve been sleeping for a lifetime.”

Amethyst landed beside Caitlin. “Your mother was taken by a dark and dangerous being, Caitlin. He came through the portal to your world and brought your mother here. He knew all about the Spectrum. How to manipulate the colors. But he needed the wand, for it had become infused with the power of human imagination. Your imagination. He wasn’t human and could not unleash its power. So he blinded Evelyn Fletcher, erasing her memory by employing the dark arts. Those dreadful glasses made her see the world in reverse. Light became dark—and so did her heart. He used her and the wand to try to destroy the kingdoms of our world. He abducted the real Queen of Hearts and put your mother in her place. Which is why I sent the princesses after you. And they, in turn, sent Jack to find you.”