Spelled

33: Frozen in Time

"You never know what you're gonna find when you look under those covers—Grandma or the wolf."

—Little Red, excerpt from Tales from the Hood
33

Frozen in Time

In the past few hours, my emotions had been all over the map—from the heights of hope, to the lows of loss. And of course, the highs made bottoming out that much rougher.
So I lay there and cried. When my throat was so raw that it hurt to breathe, I let the sound stop but kept my mouth frozen in a silent scream. Why hadn't he listened? I didn't even know his name, so I only had his face to add to the growing list of things that would haunt my waking moments—to say nothing of the sleeping ones.
Someone wrapped their arms around my body and gathered me into their lap like a small child. I finally opened my eyes and looked into Kato's. He held me in his arms, smoothing my flaming hair, murmuring things in a language I didn't understand. My heart recognized them as tender reassurances, but my head rejected them as lies.
It was not okay. I should have been able to make the wee man stop. My mother would have been able to do it. She once convinced an evil genie to seal himself back into the bottle. With only the power of her words, she was able to inspire, lead, or instill the fear of Grimm into a man. Once again, at my opportunity to follow her example, I failed. And I didn't even have the courage to watch, to witness his last moments.
I would look now. Kato tried to stop me, tried to shield my eyes, but I would see the consequences of my failure.
The prone form of the leprechaun lay next to the rainbow. The vines and clover had abandoned my friends and gone back to their master. They covered the body like a death shroud. There was no menace; the vines were gentle, almost caressing as they wrapped around the leprechaun. Once finished, they pulled the body down, entombing it in the ground, returning it to the earth.
Hydra watched the funeral solemnly. Her normally animated face looked worn, showing each one of her two hundred fifty-plus years.
I wanted to stay in Kato's arms and sleep for centuries, be like Rip Van Winkle and let the world continue to spin around me. A harsh sound hit my ears and intruded on my attempt at oblivion. Rexi was retching into a nearby bush. When she straightened, her arms shook and her face was pale, bordering on phantomlike.
Seeing her suffer gave me a jolt. If I laid there and did nothing, I would be failing her too. She deserved a chance to have her old life back—or a better one, if I could manage it. To not be chased from one corner of Story to another, looking over her shoulder for the boogeyman. This needed to end, and the answer was right there. We just needed a way to get to the other side.
I wiped my tears and summoned the bravest face I could, pushing myself away from Kato's comfort. "We need to get to the spring. It's time to write a big the end and, with any luck, a happily ever after. Hydra, do you think my flames could break the rainbow?"
Hydra considered and then shook her head. "Nyet. Rainbows all the same. Nothing solid to hit. Now if sprite vere to be hit..." Apparently, this head was not a pacifist, like the witch doctor one.
Even if she approved, it wasn't an option. For starters, I didn't know where this Rainbow Sprite character was. And second, I didn't want any non-Griz cronies getting hurt if I could help it. There had been enough of that already.
Kato looked glum. "If I still had wings, I could fly over and drop the star in." His broad shoulders slumped inward in defeat.
"Maybe, but who knows how high the barrier reaches?" A thought was beginning to snowball in my mind. "We can't go under, over, or through the rainbow. And we can't get the sprite to break the magic tied to it." I paused to finish working out the details in my head. "Hydra, if there were no rainbow, would there still be a barrier?"
Hydra stroked her chin and pulled on a lone hair that was curling along the bottom of it. "Is possible. No rainbow. Nothing for sprite magic to be magickink."
"How sure are you?" I asked, grabbing her arms.
She smacked her lips and used her tongue to fish something out of her tooth. "Is fifty-fifty."
Rexi threw her hands in the air. "What's the pixing point? You can't make the rainbow disappear. And even if you could, there's a fifty percent chance we'll all die crossing. Please, let's just go."
I shook my head emphatically, surer than ever of what we had to do now. "I can get rid of the rainbow, but we're all going to have to work together. Here's the plan."
I laid out everything that was racing through the jumble of my brain. Kato had said earlier that the rainbow was triangled, because of the three suns' light passing through the moving water. So what if the water stopped moving?
Kato needed to use his ice magic to freeze the water.
His eyebrows shot up. I think he was a bit skeptical. "I'm not sure I can freeze the whole thing at once. Especially if I can't see it."
I pushed the glasses at him. "Now you can. As soon as the spring is frozen, the rainbow should fade, hopefully taking the barrier with it."
Hydra moved her jaw like she was a cow chewing her cud. "That is big whopper of chance."
"I'm not done yet. Hydra, you're in charge of the sprite if he comes out. Talk to him, distract him, whatever."
"And vhat is it I am be distraction of?" she asked, winking one eye down.
"Rexi," I answered.
At the sound of her name, Rexi jumped and put her hands to her chest. "Why shouldn't he see me? I haven't—"
I walked over to her and grasped her hands. "You have the most important job. Kato is going to be freezing the spring, but I can't drop the star in ice. And when he unfreezes it, I won't be able to get close enough in case the spring unmagicks me." I took the star from the pocket of the sack dress and gently placed it in Rexi's hand. "As soon as the spring is liquid again, you run and toss this in."
She shook her head, her spiky hair waving back and forth. "I can't. You don't—"
"Yes, you can," I said with the utmost confidence. "Kato will guide you while he's wearing the glasses, so you'll know where to drop it." I took a deep breath and turned to Kato. "Are you ready?"
"No. But I get the feeling this isn't optional." Worry clouded his features again.
I kissed the wrinkles on his brow. "It'll work." It had to.
He pursed his lips and huffed through his nose, unhappy, but still he nodded and put on the spectacles.
Magic was happening, even though you couldn't see it directly. The temperature dropped, and my breath turned to foggy mist in front of me. There was a crackling and tinkling sound, like when you swish a drink with ice cubes. I could see Kato's eyes focused intently through the lenses. His lips quivered, and a bead of sweat rolled down the side of his face, then froze before it could drip off.
The rainbow faded from view.
Rexi took a tentative step. "Did it work? Are the barriers gone?"
I took a deep breath and steadied myself. "Let's find out." I walked toward the bright green patch of clover that marked the leprechaun's final resting place.
"Wait!" Kato protested.
I'd left out my part of the plan on purpose because I knew Kato wouldn't go along with it if he knew that I was going to be the one to test the barrier. But I couldn't ask any of them to risk their lives for my crazy idea.
There were more cracking sounds ahead of me. I called back to Kato. "Focus only on the ice. If you don't, I'll get zapped and soggy."
He set his jaw and stared ahead with a single-minded purpose.
I needed to make sure it was safe for Rexi to cross. That meant I needed to stretch my hand across where the barrier should be but hopefully wasn't. I stuck out my arm and inched forward. Then a little more. When I was ten paces past the clover patch without getting electrocuted, I finally exhaled the breath I'd been holding. It was probably safe to call for Rexi.
To the side of me, there was a shimmer in front of a tree. My eyes refused to focus on the glitter, blurring the outlines of the bark. A seam of light formed a door in the trunk of the tree, and out stepped a tall, thin man. He had a hard gleam in his eyes that matched the razor-sharp, rainbow-colored tips of his Mohawk. His face and body were dotted with metal spikes and balls that hooked through and pierced his multicolored skin. With a name like Rainbow Sprite, I had been expecting a small, winged, fragile creature, not the sharp and very angry man in front of me.
Hydra remembered her role just in time. She tossed her head at the sprite, and he, acting on instinct, put his hands out in front of him to catch the projectile. When Verte told me to use my head, I don't think this was what she'd had in mind. The sprite didn't expect it either though, and so, understandably surprised at holding a head in his hands, he didn't pay attention to where he put his fingers. Hydra bit him. And her teeth were wicked sharp.
The sprite yelled in pain and tossed Hydra's head away from him. Hydra yelled as her head flew past me. I yelled for Rexi to run and for Kato to let go of the spring. Kato yelled at me to watch out.
The sprite stopped yelling when a stormball crashed into his back.
A lot of things happened at once. I saw Griz, the Tinman, and a few demon puppies on the other side of the clearing. The spring became visible between us even before the sprite hit the ground. Kato released his control of the ice magic, allowing the water to move again, spitting droplets of disenchantment. I ran as fast as I could, but some still landed on me. It felt like I was being stabbed in the head with a pickax.
I made it to Kato and looked back at Griz. She was throwing stormballs, but when they hit the water, the balls dissolved. She couldn't attack or come any closer with the water between us. The same applied to me; I couldn't blast her with emerald flame and I couldn't get any closer either.
When I had played chess with Verte, she'd called something like this a stalemate. But I still had a pawn on the board. Rexi stood at the edge of the clearing, doing her best impression of Pinocchio before he came to life. I couldn't even see her breathing, she was so terrified.
Come on, come on. Move. I willed it silently because, if I called out to her, it would draw Griz's attention.
Finally, Rexi took one step. Then another. I could see the bulge of the star in her pocket. If she would have ran, she might have gotten rid of it before Griz noticed her. But she kept advancing slowly, and Griz and I both watched in complete silence.
Rexi made it within throwing distance of the spring and stuck her hand in her pocket. But instead of pulling out the star and tossing it in, she turned and looked at me. Her face had droplets of water running down it and maybe a few tears. Her eyes were wide with sadness. She opened her mouth to speak but closed it again without uttering a sound.
Then she dropped her head and kept walking.
To Griz.