What Lies Beyond

Chapter 14

I follow Matthew off the path and into Sleeping Beauty's kingdom. Everyone wears a rubber band on their wrist, probably as an effect of Connor, my cousin, who was always poked fun of by Alex, who won all family games.

"Where's her palace?" I ask, "There are plenty of big buildings.

Matthew stares into my deep brown eyes. "I'll take you there. I've lived here more than half my life."

"I don't trust you," I blurt out.

"I don't trust you either," he replies.

I glare at him, staring into his hazel eyes. I nod as well, for no reason in particular. I follow him to the palace door. A guard walks out of the palace. Matthew pulls me down to the ground.

"Why?" I ask.

"I'm hated here," he replies cautiously, "So is Goldilocks. If they find out you were with her, they'll hate you too."

"How do you know?" I demand.

"I was with her when I got arrested," he replies like it was so obvious.

He puts his finger to his lips, telling me nicely to shut my trap. I nod in response. The guards walk back inside. He nods as a signal that we could go in. He runs inside the building. I tip-toe behind him. A guard arrived and grabs Matthew's arms. Matthew thrashes and finally the guard let's go. I run and kick the guard. Another guard runs into the room. I elbow him in the chest, causing him to kick me. I run and run and run. I have no clue where I'm running, but the guard follows me. My feet brush off the ground. I feel like I'm flying. No... I am flying. I am part fairy, after all. My stomach drops while I'm flying, caused by all my adrenaline running inside my body.

"Summer?" Matthew asks with confusion.

I fly into a wall. Then another one. Then another one. Oh great. I cannot control my own body movements. I start spinning in circles, growing larger and larger every instant. Blue sparks come flying from my chest, destroying one of the guards in half. This bubble makes Matthew fly towards me. He has trouble balancing inside this randomly appearing bubble, but at least he's never experienced this. New experiences are fun. Flying is a new experience. Some more guards walk into the room. I try my hardest to get the blue lightning bolts out of my system, but none comes out. Finally, as soon as more guards surround Red, the blue lightning bolts come out. I levitate higher and higher in the air, until my head hits the ceiling.

I remember one lesson I learned. "Disappear!" Suddenly, I become invisible.

"Summer?" Matthew asks, obviously confused.

The wall is filled with bricks.... Slates.... As if something is behind them. "LECTIO DIVINA!" The slates disappear to reveal all of these fancy worlds. Oh.... Doesn't Lectio Divina mean divine reading? Oops...

My invisibility wears off just as Sleeping beauty walks into the room. I fly to the ground then my wings disappear.

"Pardon?" she asks me with a kind voice.

I nod.

"Are you a fairy?"

"Yea...."

Sleeping Beauty looks at me weirdly. Matthew eyeballs her and looks at me like he's saying she's not safe, don't trust her. I reply with a look of bewilderment on my face. He just shrugs it off like nothing's going on, just to impress Sleeping Beauty. She walks past us, glaring at me on her way out.

"Summer, control your magical powers," Matthew whispers.

"Honestly, I would if I could,"

"Just learn,"

"Get a life,"

"Summer, we have to get the jewel,"

"What?"

"The pink and white jewel, we'll return it later, after we're done, of course,"

"Done with what?"

"Finding your sister, and finding out what my mom is doing inside the towns,"

I nod understandingly. We run into the hallway. We punch and kick and thrash around until every other guard but one is knocked out cold. Matthew takes the costume and climbs into it. He gestures with his hand for me to do it too. I follow his lead and dress up as a guard. My hair barely sticks out of the helmet, and the helmet is making me smell like urine. I desperately need to take a shower, but there's no way to shower here. There are no showers here. All of the water.... I think it had run out previously but oh well. The water runs out all the time. Mysteriously, my hands always are crystal clean and smell like a fresh bouquet of pink and red roses, that my father used to buy for my mother on Christmas Day, Valentine's Day, my siblings and my birthday, her birthday, even on his own birthday. Mom put so many bouquets of flowers around the house, that there were two in each room. Our house is huge with over fifteen rooms total. That's a lot of flowers.

Both of us stand uncomfortably and walk slowly to this room with jewels.