The Secret of Ashona (27 page)

The black box was supposed to know everything, but it must have been wrong. He had his soul back! There was nothing that could force him to do such awful things. He just wouldn’t do it! Nothing could make him hurt Trevor like that. Erec would keep his eyes open, and he would make big changes as soon as he figured out what would affect him like that.

It took a few deep breaths to get his perspective back again. Nothing bad had happened yet—and he would make sure that it didn’t. For now, things were great. He stood and stretched, ready to leave and go home. So he bounded up lightly on his toes . . . and nothing happened. It was a surprise—Erec had forgotten that gravity would affect him again. So . . . how was he supposed to get out of this steep pit, then?

The Diamond Mind seemed to know what he was thinking. It cleared its throat. “I’ve been thinking about this too. For a long time now, people only fall down the pit, but never climb back out again. They used to bring roll ladders, and climb in and out that way. But I’m not sure how to get you up there now.”

The walls were too far apart to scale, and there was nothing to grasp on to to climb. What a ridiculous irony, he thought, if he was
to be restored completely to health and then stuck down in this pit until he starved to death.

“Help!” he shouted, looking at the sky far above. “Is anyone out there?”

“Only me,” a familiar voice answered. At the edge of the pit above, Spartacus was lying on his stomach, looking down at him. Stacks of books surrounded him, just as the Furies had promised to give to him. In a moment the spirit was at Erec’s side, and then Erec felt himself whiz into the air alongside him.

“Thank you! You saved me. How long have you been here, Spartacus?”

“Since you’ve been down there. I watched those awful movies about what Baskania did—unbelievable! You did the right thing, reversing everything, you know. And asking the Furies to let only you see and talk to me. That’s perfect.”

“Yeah.” Erec grinned. “So, you gonna hang out with me until we figure out how to save those souls?”

“You bet. I have nothing else to do, until Baskania calls me into service. We better save those souls before then, because that’s when my time is up.”

“What do you mean, your time is up?” Erec knew full well that Spartacus planned on asking the Furies to destroy him when that happened, but he didn’t want to accept that yet. “Maybe you’ll do something for Baskania, then get out again and be free—it might not last forever.”

“I’ll never find that out. Because I’m not serving him. The minute I get the call from him, I’ll make a pit stop in Alsatia and try to rescue the souls on my own. Then I’ll let the Furies obliterate me, no matter what happens. That’ll end things the right way.”

Erec did not want to imagine that. But he understood. “I have to let you know what I saw when I looked into my future. You’re the
only one I can tell this to—it’s just too awful to admit to anyone at home.” Erec recounted his vision of giving Trevor to Baskania.

Spartacus winced. “That’s awful. Was I in the vision?”

“No.”

“That’s it, then. I’ll make sure that I stick around you at all times. I won’t let that happen, okay?”

“Thanks.” Erec felt relieved. He looked around. “I lost my sense of where things are now that I’m not a ghost. There was a Port-O-Door somewhere around that brought me here, but I forget where it was.”

Spartacus laughed. “Glad to help. But you won’t need a Port-O-Door if you’re with me.”

In a moment, Erec was flying in the air. It was a strange feeling, soaring forward in a standing position. Because he could see him, he could tell that Spartacus was holding his shoulders—even though to others he would have looked very odd. They flew forward, over the treetops.

Now that Erec was alive again, he was terrified of the height and the speed, especially as he did not feel tightly secured. “D-don’t drop me!”

“Of course not.” Spartacus laughed. “It’s not like this is hard to do. Have you forgotten already? You might want to close your eyes for this part.”

All of a sudden, they sailed straight up into the air at rocket speed. At about five thousand feet, he sailed right by the window of an airplane. A woman looked out at him in shock, and Erec stared right back, equally amazed. The woman probably thought she was seeing things.

“S-stop.” He could barely get the words out of his mouth. “I c-can’t breathe. It’s too c-cold here. It’s too fast.”

Spartacus stopped, hanging in the air. “Oh, I’m so sorry. We just were here the other day—I forgot it’s different when you’re a human.
Guess there’s no way you’d make it to the top of the atmosphere now.”

“No!” Erec choked thinking about it. “Go down slow, okay? And no higher, either.”

“Sure. I just wanted to get some good distance so we can shoot across the ocean quicker. You know.”

Erec wished he could not see that Spartacus now held him with just one hand, and was using the other to change their direction. Soon they were blowing sideways, and slightly downward. Erec could not stop shaking. It was freezing, even with Spartacus going slower.

Eventually the sun warmed him a little, and he could enjoy the view. Before long, the coast of America came into sight, and then houses got bigger around his mother’s apartment in New Jersey. He laughed, wondering if anyone would see him drop out of the sky.

But nobody did. He landed gently on the grass outside of the apartment building, then caught his breath and ran inside. He could not wait to see everyone.

“Bethany! Mom! I’m back!”

There was a commotion, and then all of a sudden Erec was bombarded with hugs from all sides. It felt so good to see everybody and so amazing to be hugged, Erec could not believe it. Tears streamed down his face, and he didn’t even try to hide them. He swung Zoey in circles and threw her into the air, bowed a few times to Jam in response to his profuse bowing, tickled Bethany, and laughed when she got him back until he cried again.

“You were gone for so long!” Bethany was out of breath, tears in her eyes. “I thought . . . I thought we’d never see you again! Every day things seemed worse. I was sure that you were dead—I don’t know why I thought that, but I was convinced! And now you’re fine!”

June shook her head. “I’ll never let you disappear like that again. It was torture. Like the whole world was destroyed. We could barely function.”

Even Trevor spoke. “It feels like life is starting over again.” He smiled. “Thanks for rescuing me, Erec.”

“Don’t be silly, Trev. Anytime.” Sadness and fear welled inside Erec when he hugged his brother. The images he had just seen of Trevor in his future filled his head. He would never let anything bad happen to Trevor again—and Erec would never, ever put him in danger. He would have to be on alert at all times.

A horrible thought occurred to Erec then. If he saw himself giving Trevor to Baskania, and about to give him a dragon, what else had he done for him? Had he handed over Bethany . . . and his mother? It was too terrible to think about. He would have to look into his future again soon and try to get clues.

There was a strange smell, and it was making Erec hungry even though it was not appetizing at all. He looked around to see what was making the odor, and then he froze. . . .

There it was! His scepter—leaning up against the wall of the apartment! How could it be here with him now? Was it following him? Maybe he wasn’t able to get rid of it anymore. What if it wouldn’t go away?

If he had been relaxed before, every ounce of contentment fled from his body. There was nothing in the room except for the scepter and him. He had to touch it. He knew that he couldn’t—it would be the end of him. But he had no choice. After the amount of power that the thing had pulled from his body just recently, there was no way that he could resist it this time. It was too much.

Slowly, he walked closer to the patterned gold, studded with gems. It was his, wasn’t it? Maybe he
was
ready for it, otherwise it wouldn’t be here.
No!
he shouted to himself. He should not touch it. Not yet. But he couldn’t help it. Desire overwhelmed him.

Only one finger . . . just one finger wouldn’t hurt anything, would it? He would just give it a small tap. Barely moving, his hand closed in. Just one little touch . . .

He squeezed his eyes shut, knowing that he was doing something very wrong. But at the same time he was filled with a wild excitement for what was about to happen. . . .

Nothing. Erec didn’t understand. There was no feeling to the gold other than a slight coolness. He grabbed it with both hands now. Absolutely no electricity at all. What had happened? Had it stopped working? Was Erec immune to the thing now?

Not able to help himself, Erec picked the scepter up and pointed it at a wall.
Make an apple pie appear.
It was the first thing he could think of.

Nothing happened.

Bethany laughed. “Remember that thing?”

Erec looked at her blankly. “My scepter? What happened to it?”

“That’s not your scepter, silly. It looks like it though, remember? That’s the pretend one that I got from the druids as a present. You know, with the fake Lia Fail stone? That’s when they gave you the fake Serving Tray—the one that made only disgusting food, and Jack got the map that would always take him home again?”

Erec set the fake scepter down, embarrassed. “I remember now. It just fooled me.” He could feel his face turn red. “Stupid thing. What’s that I’m smelling?”

She laughed. “It turns out the fake scepter isn’t totally useless after all. I found it when I was going through the things that I took to Ashona. The druids had told me how to activate it to make it work for someone, but I never bothered trying it. Everything else they gave us turned out to be a joke. So just for fun, playing around I assigned it to Cutie Pie.”

Hearing her name, the fluffy pink kitten, Cutie Pie, leaped into the room and up onto Bethany’s shoulder. The cat bounded down and jumped on the scepter a few times as if demonstrating what Bethany was talking about.

“I kind of forgot I even did it, and Cutie Pie didn’t notice that the scepter was programmed to her for a few days. But it made some kind of connection with her I guess. Because before you know it, one of the bedrooms was full of sardines. I mean, top-to-bottom stuffed with the little fish. And there was Cutie Pie, happily munching her way in at the doorway. It took a while to get rid of them all, but we never got the smell out of there.” Bethany laughed.

Erec didn’t find it so funny. “That thing
works
? You need to keep it away from everyone, okay? Don’t use it for anything! How do you program it to . . . never mind. Don’t tell me. Whatever you do, never tell me. Even if it’s just a shadow of what the other one can do, I don’t want to know. . . .”

He realized that he was starving when Jam brought the Serving Tray back in. How long had it been since he had eaten? He had no idea—and could not believe how excited he was to taste food again. “I’ll have a thick, juicy hamburger with tomato, lettuce, and ketchup. And French fries, a chocolate milkshake, and a cheese omelet. And fried chicken. Oh, wait—I’ll have some homemade chocolate chip cookies too. And fresh baked brownies. And peaches. And mashed potatoes.” He kept swiping food off of the tray to make room for more. When he could wait no longer, he picked up the dripping hamburger and took a huge bite. . . .

Heaven. He hoped that Spartacus wasn’t watching, it would make him jealous, he was sure. But for now the ghost remained hidden.

“So, what were you up to?” Bethany asked. “Did you get rid of that skin thing, or whatever was stopping you from hugging us before?”

He laughed. “I did. Now that I’m okay I can tell you what happened, and you won’t get too upset, I hope. I wasn’t alive when I was here last. If any of you touched me you’d be able to tell that I was a ghost.”

There was a stunned silence, and then his mother chided him. “Not funny, Erec. Don’t joke about things like that.”

“I’m not joking! It really happened.” He told everyone his entire story from the moment the Hermit let him escape the cords on his bed.

Bethany’s eyes widened. “Baskania had put Fear Essences into the air? No wonder we were all so miserable when you were gone. I mean—of course we’d be upset that you weren’t here anyway. But we were fighting all of the time, and nobody would help anyone feel better. How could the Shadow Prince have done that? And we all thought he was such a good guy.”

“A good guy?” Erec could not believe his ears. “You know better than that . . . all of you. What are you talking about?”

There was a silence, and then June said in a low tone, “We did know better than that. It’s just sinking in now, Erec, but Baskania’s spell must have worked on us, too.”

Erec thought about the spells that he had reversed with the scepter. “Do you mean that you all believed that Baskania was the true ruler and you should all serve him? You have to be kidding.”

June shook her head. “I don’t know. It just seemed obvious—” She plunked into a chair with a hand over her heart. “This is crazy. I can’t believe what we gave up last week.”

“What?” Erec wasn’t sure he wanted to hear this.

“The Special Tax Service came by—and the most valuable thing I could think of was the Seeing Eyeglasses. None of us could get them to work so that we could see you, which was another reason I thought that you had died. . . .” She looked stunned. “And you
had
died. And now you’re here.” She hugged him again, for a long time.

Erec’s heart sank. “You gave up the Seeing Eyeglasses to Baskania? I can’t believe it. Well . . . it wasn’t your fault. You were under a spell.”

June looked down. “I thought I was doing the right thing to help the Shadow Prince, the ‘best guy on the planet.’ This is disgusting.”

“Don’t feel bad. It was all my fault that Baskania got that scepter to begin with. Now he’s even crazier.”

After eating more than he had ever put away in his life, Erec took a long nap. It felt amazing to sleep after so much time had gone by. And waking up without the driven feeling of being a ghost was incredible too. Erec could happily spend the rest of his life doing nothing at all except for eating, sleeping, and being with his family.