The Spindlers (20 page)

The monster looked at her, and all three of its heads seemed to smile. Liza felt her stomach sink to her toes. She was out of chances—and out of ideas, too.

Then she remembered—Patrick's baseball! It was still nestled at the bottom of her pocket where she had placed it after retrieving it from Mirabella, along with Patrick's socks, her father's glasses, and a small collection of seeds of hope.

For the last time, Liza gripped the ball and shuffled forward.
I can do this
, she told herself.
I
will
do it
.

The three-headed dog drew back all three of its mouths, showing tongues wet with saliva and fangs as sharp as knives.

Slowly it approached, snarling. She forced herself to stand still, even though every single muscle in her body was twitching and shaking and telling her to
run
. Closer, closer the monster came, taking its time now. For the moment, she was still standing just out of reach of its long, curved teeth and its powerful jaws; she was still safe.

But not for long.

And then, all at once, the monster pounced. At the same moment Liza dropped to her knees and rolled the baseball, hard, from her hands. The ball went straight and fast against its target.

For one second everything froze. The three-headed dog with its mouths open and roaring, ready to chomp her to bits, seemed to hover in midair almost directly above her.

Then the ancient stake, which had been keeping the monster rooted in place for longer than time has been an idea, popped out of the ground. And the three-headed dog, free of its leash, continued sailing, sailing, sailing—over Liza, who had flung herself onto her stomach and felt the heat from the dog's massive scorpion tail pass not an inch from her skin—and directly into the tangled mess of razor-sharp tentacles.

Everything exploded. The cavern was filled with horrible noise: barks and snarls and screams and clashing metal. Liza's head rang; her mouth was full of dust; her knees were cut and scraped from her hard fall to the ground. But she climbed to her feet and sprinted toward the door at the far side of the chamber, cutting through the three-headed dog's now-vacant circle.

She looked back only once, when she had reached the door and had already taken hold of the handle. She looked back toward the source of the terrible symphony of sound, which had swelled to a crescendo: the sound of thousands and thousands of years of pent-up anger and frustration, suddenly released.

For a moment she did not understand what she was seeing. There were heads and teeth and claws and thin, waving legs, but she could not tell where one monster began and the other ended. They were so locked in battle, biting and lashing and tearing at each other, that they seemed almost to have merged together.

They would destroy each other, Liza knew with a sudden certainty. They would bite and tear and cut until there was nothing left of either of them; then the chamber would be empty, and it would be safe for her to return.

Liza had made it through the first room. She pushed open the door and stepped into the second.

A
s soon as the door swung closed behind her, the sounds of the monsters' battle were swallowed completely, and Liza was left in perfect silence. After the stark brightness of the first chamber, the second room seemed enormous, and full of shadows and strange reflections. For a moment she had an overwhelming feeling of vertigo and had to press up against the wall behind her for support. The door was once again gone. It had disappeared just as it had in the first room.

As her eyes adjusted to the dim blue light, she realized why she felt so dizzy and disoriented.

The second room was full of mirrors.

The space was not as enormous as Liza had, at first, believed. Instead it was lined on either side with mirrored doors, all of them reflecting the shadows and the strange, flickering light, and then reflecting those reflections, and then reflecting the reflection of those reflections, on and on and on.

Unlike the first room, this one was old and damp. Stalactites dripped like candle wax from the uneven ceiling, and pools of moisture collected along the uneven ground. All this, too, was reflected.

Liza took a step forward and saw her own reflection appear in the first set of mirrors. She looked strange to herself: pale and much smaller than she looked in the mirrors at home. She wondered whether being underground had somehow shrunk her. How long had she been Below? It might have been days, or weeks. Liza could no longer tell.

“How strange,” she said out loud, and of course, the two reflections spoke with her.

“But at least,” she said to the two Lizas, “it's much better than the monsters.” In fact, she did not see that this room was anything at all to be frightened of. One of these mirrored doors must, she reasoned, be the door that led to the third and final room; she would walk along the row and try them all.

She walked confidently toward the first door on her left. Then, from behind her, a voice spoke out.

“No, Liza!”

She spun around, her heart hammering. And there, standing in the third mirror on the right, was Patrick. He was shaking his head frantically and banging on the inside of the glass, as though he could force his way out of the mirror and into her side of the world.

Liza was so surprised she could hardly speak. “Is—is that really you?” she asked in a bare whisper. It didn't seem possible that after the long journey, and all the trials and troubles she had endured, she had finally found her brother.

Patrick nodded. For a moment Liza thought she saw a strange look pass across his face—a look of triumph—but then she was sure it was only a trick of the light.

“Yes, yes,” he said eagerly. “It's really me. Come and open the door, so I can get out.”

Liza started toward him.

“Don't listen to him! He's a liar!” a voice burst out behind her. She whirled around and saw a second Patrick, this one in the fourth mirror to the left. “I'm the real Patrick. Behind his door there is a snake the size of a train; he wants you to open up so you'll be eaten. It's one of the queen's tricks. Don't fall for it.”

“You can't trust him,” the first Patrick said, crossing his arms and jutting out his lower lip in a very Patrick way. “He's the one who's lying. Behind his door are a thousand hungry spindlers, waiting to devour you.”

“They're both liars,” came a third voice, and Liza, desperately confused, saw yet another Patrick step into yet another mirror. “I'm the real Patrick. Both of them work for the queen. If you open either of their doors, you'll be dead quicker than a fly in a toilet bowl.”

“You're one to talk.” A fourth Patrick appeared, snorting scornfully at the third Patrick. “You're hiding poisonous stingers behind your door. She'll be dead as a doornail before she's finished turning the handle. I'm the real Patrick, Liza.”

“No, I am!” A fifth Patrick appeared.

“No, I am!” And a sixth.

More and more Patricks appeared in more and more mirrors—until the hall was full of them, and filled with the clamorous sounds of shouting as they hurled accusations at one another and begged Liza to open their door, the
real
door.

Liza's head was full of buzzing, and she was dizzier than ever. She walked back and forth between the rows of mirrors, panic welling inside her. She had no doubt that behind most of these doors some horrible evil was lying in wait. The queen of the spindlers would have made sure of that.

“Liza, over here!”

“Liza, over here!”

One of these doors
must
lead to the last room. But all the Patricks looked the same to her: They were dressed in the same ratty corduroys with the frayed cuffs, and the same faded
BROOKLYN
T-shirt, and the same red Chuck Taylors, just how the real Patrick would dress. And each of them pouted and shouted and snorted and stamped like the real Patrick did when he was throwing a tantrum.

“Don't listen to any of them, Liza! Open my door!”

“No! Open mine!”

“Stop it!” Liza gritted her teeth and clamped her hands over her ears. She couldn't think; the voices and the shouting were too loud. If they would only be quiet …

“There's a nest of hornets the size of softballs behind his door—”

“He's a liar, Liza! Come on! You can tell just by listening to him.”

“Shut up!” Liza cried. “Shut up and let me think for a minute!”

But the Patricks did not shut up. If anything, their shouting grew louder, until the room echoed with voices and the stalactites trembled from the ceiling, and the water in the puddles was full of ripple and vibration. And it was just like the real Patrick not to listen, and do the exact reverse of what you wanted him to do.

“Liza!”

“Liza!”

“Liza!”

Liza's anger peaked, and she lashed out in frustration, driving her fist against the nearest mirror.

“I said shut up!” she cried; and felt a sharp ribbon of pain shoot from her hand all the way up her arm as she connected with the glass. A dark trickle of blood ran between her fingers, and she brought her hand quickly to her mouth. A web of fissures had appeared in the mirror, splintering Patrick's image into a hundred pieces. Still, he continued shouting at her, his mouth now a hundred mouths.

All the Patricks continued shouting at her.

All of them, that is, but one.

She had seen him out of the corner of her eye as her hand had cracked the glass. He had reached for her quickly, instinctively. And now he asked her, “Are you okay?”

Liza, no longer unsure, walked directly to the mirrored door in which the real Patrick was reflected, as all around her the clamor and shouting continued. Then she put both hands against the mirror and pushed; and she passed through, into the third and final room.