Part 24
"Connections"
Two days. The realization pounded through Lewis' head for the umpteenth time that day. Ashwyn had been missing for two days.
Lewis knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Schlimme must have captured her somehow, but the question of where he was keeping her was one the young man couldn't answer. The Phantasmenagerie contained ample hiding places for a six-inch fairy, but after his failed rescue attempt, Lewis didn't dare go in to blindly snoop a second time. He did notice that Krasimir Schlimme wasn't anywhere in the vicinity, which led him to the conclusion that he must be staying somewhere off-site--in the city, perhaps? But that also meant he wasn't hounding Lewis, looking for more opportunities to accuse him of things, and for that Lewis was a little relieved.
Lewis passed by the arcade on his way to the rides. Casey was there, and he smiled and waved to Lewis. "Good luck with the monkey cages today, dude!" he called.
Lewis found a small comfort in the greeting. At least the staff here at the carnival were slowly warming up to him. They did seem to genuinely enjoy having him around.
Unfortunately, the same could not be said for his peers and professors back at Browning Academy. Without Ashwyn to distract him, Lewis felt each and every surreptitious glance and whispered conversation directed at him. How had so many opinions changed from bland indifference to sudden and pointed judgment? Had something happened that he wasn't aware of, since he worked off-campus instead of inside one of the businesses frequented by other students? There was a nebulous report he overheard about a shifty man seen on campus the day before, but nothing had come of it, and Lewis hadn't noticed anything amiss in his vicinity.
The "Monkey Cage" ride consisted of enclosed pods on a rotating track that each also rotated on their own horizontal axis, creating a spinning, turning, completely unique ride for each pod. Lewis dutifully checked the safety belts on each rider and secured the cage doors before hitting the start button. The ride groaned to life, accompanied by the screams and yelps of the riders as the pods tumbled around the track.
A furious cackle behind him made him jump, but it was only the canned sound-effects coming form the motion-activated animatronics mounted in front of the gates of the Phantasmenagerie. A big CLOSED sign barred the entrance still. Lewis wondered what the cruel man might be doing, since he couldn't make money off the Phantasmians as attractions just now, nor could he move them to a different location now that they were alive and out of his control unless they were fully restrained. A chill ran down Lewis' spine at the memory of seeing Lisa and the gryphon, and he shivered.
"Hey, stranger!" a cheery voice called.
Lewis whirled around. A familiar face framed by dark hair grinned at him over an armful of the stuffed animals used for prizes at the arcade. She wore a staff polo, but he didn't recall seeing her there in the last few weeks he'd worked there. He could remember seeing her somewhere else, but where could that be?
"Hi..." he responded slowly.
She blinked, a quick realization happening on her face. "Danielle--do you remember me? We worked--well, I should say, almost worked--at Moulton House together." She gestured to him. "It's... Lewis, right?"
Lewis nodded. "Oh, uh, hi, Danielle!" he stammered. Had she seen him staring at the Phantasmenagerie as one possessed? "I didn't know you worked here."
Danielle shrugged, adjusting her grip on the fluffy unicorn in her hand. "I started working last week, but only a couple shifts a week," she said. "I've also got a job at the consignment shop on campus, but they had so many applicants that they couldn't give out week-long shifts. Besides," she shifted her gaze to indicate the the people staggering happily away from the Monkey Cages, "this place is way more exciting than working on campus!"
Lewis nodded as he again went through his safety checks and launched the ride for another couple minutes. "You could say that again," he replied.
Danielle caught the hint. "Well, we can talk later. See you around, Lewis!" She turned to make her way over to the arcade.
Lewis spent the the rest of his shift posted at different rides, and when he finally finished for dinner, he found Danielle in the food court, just finishing a Greek rice bowl.
She waved, and Lewis sat down with a bowl of chili and a cornbread muffin.
"So," she started the conversation off, "What's your academic focus?"
Lewis shrugged. "I guess I'm just taking some generic classes, I might go into some sort of business field." He paused to take another bite of chili. "How about you?"
Danielle grinned. "I'm just doing general classes at Browning, too, but I'm focused on the topics that have to do with the fashion industry. I want to be a clothing designer." Her eyes sparkled as she spoke.
Lewis watched her toying with a lock of her hair. He found himself wanting to hear her talk again.
"When did you figure out you wanted to be a designer?" he asked.
Danielle plunged into her story, and asked questions about Lewis' family, and the two ended up chatting back and forth for so long, Lewis almost forgot that he was sitting in the carnival food court until the floodlights flickered on, marking the arrival of dusk. How had time flown by so fast?
Lewis checked his watch to discover that the last bus to Browning Academy would arrive in only a few minutes! "Oh wow, I guess we'd better go," he told Danielle.
She chuckled and cleared up after herself along with him.
In contrast to dinnertime, the bus ride back to the campus was relatively quiet. Lewis allowed his thoughts to wander over to his Phantasmian friends. Without Ashwyn to interrupt him randomly all the time, and without having to look over his shoulder for Adolf throughout the day, time had passed unusually fast.
The bus pulled up to the stop adjacent to student housing on campus, and Lewis glanced at Danielle. "Are you in Chester Hall?" he asked. Wouldn't it be the height of irony to find out that this girl was staying in his building?
She shook her head. "No, I'm staying over in Baum Hall. I guess this is good night, then!" she patted him on the shoulder and headed away from Lewis.
The young man walked down the block toward his dorm, watching the twinkling stars till they reminded him of something that made him stop in his tracks.
The fairies! He didn't realize how much he had grown accustomed to having them flock around him as soon as he was alone--now that it didn't happen, he missed it. Where were they? Dare he call out for Queen Evalia, in case she hovered somewhere just out of sight?
A flicker of multicolored lights caught his eye, coming from the front of Chester Hall. Lewis jogged closer, his heart thumping as he rounded the corner to see a whole squad of police cars converged on his building. What had happened?
A handful of officers milled about the entrance. One saw Lewis walking up and pointed to him. "You! This building is closed. Please be on your way!"
Lewis was a little taken aback. "Well, ah, I live here," he told the officer. "What's going on?"
The officer's mouth set in a grim line. "There's been a security breach in one of the dorms. We're accounting for all the residents now as we evacuate the ones in the rooms surrounding the affected room due to the mess. What's your name, son?"
"Lewis Grant, sir." Lewis swallowed hard under the officer's scrutiny.
The cop pulled up a roster of everyone in Chester Hall and ran his finger down till he said, "Ah, Lewis... Oh no." The grim expression softened into concern. "I have bad news, sonny."
That much Lewis had already guessed. "What is it?" Had they discovered the refugee community of fairies in his room?
“Well, it seems your room got the worst of it. Seems a stray dog got loose in the building and bolted down the hallway. Not sure how it ended up in your room but it tore things up pretty bad while campus security had the bright idea to try and barricade it inside to wait for animal control."
"What?" Lewis gaped, eyes wide in real terror as he stared toward the building. "You mean it's still in there?"
The cop sighed and scratched the top of his head. "No, it jumped out of the window before the proper authorities arrived. We're still trying to find it, but in the meantime, I’m afraid you’re going to have to stay in one of the reserve rooms till they can get another room set up for you.”
Panic set in, and Lewis grimaced. “Can I at least go in and see what I can salvage for tonight?”
The officer’s expression had “NO” written all over it, but he didn’t say it. Instead, he hailed his team on the radio. “Hey, the kid wants to come in and grab what he can for tonight. Has the investigator got at least some of it cleaned up so he can do so?”
The reply came back, “I suppose if it’s only a few things that are absolutely necessary. You can send him in, and we’ll supervise so he doesn’t get hurt.”
“Thank you!” Lewis blurted, ducking under the caution tape around the hallway.
The security team on site were already evacuating the students most traumatized by the event. As the officer said, Lewis saw the destruction even in the hallway: deep gouges in the walls, any furniture fractured and overturned. His door had been taken off its hinges. Lewis felt his heart drop as he witnessed the chaotic scene.
A security guard beckoned to him from inside the room. “We’ve cleaned the glass from the window off the floor, and you can find all the things from your closet we could salvage on the bed there,” she pointed to the small heap of clothes and his travel cases jumbled on his bed. Somebody with a large trash cart wheeled it out, and Lewis saw the shapes of half a dozen smashed misti piled inside. There were articles of clothing mixed in, blotched and soaked with a substance the same color as the misti flesh.
He wandered inside and began shoving the clothes into his suitcase. When he picked up his shower bag, he felt a cluster of sharp, hard shards and stopped. Immediately, the memory of the special puzzle box holding the Gyth sprang to mind, and Lewis looked closer.
The zipper had been wrenched off, leaving the bag wide open. Inside were the shattered remains of the box, but no gem. His heart racing, he reached into his collar to reassure himself that the Chain was still hanging around his neck, at least. He piled whatever toiletries he could into the bag, and followed the security officer back out to the hallway.
“Head out to the courtyard and to the building on your left for reserve housing,” she told him. “Someone will let you know when you can return to using Chester Hall, once the extent of the damage has been assessed and repaired.”
Lewis had to clasp his hands together to keep from shaking. “Any ideas on who might be responsible for the break-in?” he asked. "Maybe the random guy who's been lurking around campus had something to do with it."
The guard gave him a confused squint. “It was a wild, stray dog that got in. The only enforcement we are working with would be animal control. Nobody’s at fault--and that stranger hasn't been seen since yesterday.”
If only she knew! Lewis followed the directions to a plain grey building. There were fewer rooms here, and none of them private like the dorms. Lewis passed by a room with five bunk-beds and several people chatting amongst one another, making friends in spite of the bleakness of being in “reserve housing.” The next room had many beds, but no one else. Lewis chose a bed near the window. He set everything down just as a cluster of swirling lights appeared in the dark outside. Surreptitiously, he cracked the window and Queen Evalia entered alone. The other fairies remained outside.
“It was horrible!” she chimed, landing in the light of Lewis’s reading lamp so her fluttering wings wouldn’t be seen. “We got out of there as soon as Adolf neared the building, or he might have caught all of us, too!”
Lewis groaned and covered his face with his hands. “So it was Adolf!” he sighed.
“We tried luring him away when he first began shadowing you, the day after he caught you at the carnival,” the Fairy Queen explained. “We could lead him away from you and your living space at first, but he kept returning to follow you, and tonight he found his way into your room, tearing everything apart.”
“And now he’s got the Gyth!” Lewis complained. “How did he figure out where I hid it? I never told anybody where it was!”
The Queen’s eyes were large and serious. “There is only one way he would definitely know to follow you and only you to figure out all the places you go, rather than following the false trails we gave him,” she said.
Lewis nodded miserably, having already concluded the same thing. “Ashwyn.”
“I cannot imagine how they tortured her to get that information,” the Queen almost sounded like she could be weeping a little.
“I promise I will do whatever it takes to find her,” Lewis said.
Just then, a junior staff assistant poked his head in the door. “Hello? Oh, I knew I heard somebody.” He crossed the room as Queen Evalia scurried out the window without activating her shimmer. “My name’s Todd, I’m the liaison for the building. You one of the students from Chester Hall?”
Lewis nodded.
The assistant clucked his tongue. “Terrible luck, that. You just let me know what set you need, and I’ll help you get it.” He shut the window and locked it.
Lewis shrugged. “I think I have everything I need for now,” he said.
Todd smiled and gave him a thumbs-up. “My room is just down the hall. Sheets and blankets are in the drawer under your bunk. If you need anything just holler. Good night!”
Lewis waited till he was alone to dig out sheets, a pillow, and a blanket. His sleep that night was filled with all the grisly ways a ruthless man like Krasimir Schlimme might torture a captive fairy over and over and over again.
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In the basement of a secluded house at the edge of town, strange things were happening.
A wiry man in a thick leather apron plunged a drooping, glowing object into a bucket of water. Jets of steam erupted as it hissed. When he lifted it with the tongs again, a silvery chain glinted in the early morning light.
Krasimir Schlimme smiled. He laid the chain on the surface of his work table, quickly using pliers to attach a clasp to one end. Once he was sure it had cooled, he removed his fireproof gloves and connected the clasp to the end of the chain. It fit perfectly. For all intents and purposes, Krasimir Schlimme had managed to forge his own chain.
"Yes..." he muttered happily. "Yes!"
In the house above him, a door slammed. Heavy footsteps thudded down the basement stairs.
"Master!" Adolf called. "I've got it!"
Schlimme held the chain in one hand and extended the other to his henchman. “Bring it to me.”
Adolf reached into his pocket and produced the baseball-sized gem. Schlimme slowly brought the two pieces together. They touched, but wouldn’t immediately melt into one another as it would on the real chain. A jolt of power as they touched told Schlimme that his theory had been correct, but it just needed some adjustment. He grabbed a blowtorch from his work table and heated the chain till the metal softened and glowed hotly. Carefully laying the searing metal over the back of the Gyth, he held it till the two metals bonded. It wasn’t a perfect seal, but when he lifted the chain, the Gyth hung from it. Krasimir Schlimme draped it around his neck. He smiled at the power emanating up and down his spine.
His Underworld minions sensed it too, for they came flocking to the lab, gazing in awe at the gem around their master’s neck.
Krasimir chuckled. “Now I really am your master!” he gushed. “Bow to me!”
Every single goblin, ogre, and troll bent the knee, groveling on the ground before Krasimir. The artist spread his arms over them like a benevolent leader, basking in their deference. He caressed the Phantasmagyth with his hand. “Time to see vhat I can do with zis!” He surveyed the crowd of Underworlders till he spotted a small goblin. He pointed imperiously. “You!” His finger wandered to an ogre easily twice the goblin’s size. “Fight him! Take him down!”
The goblin fairly leaped over the warty grey heads around him. The ogre barely reacted, swatting at the goblin with huge paws as the smaller creature attacked him relentlessly.
“Stop!” Krasimir commanded, and immediately the combatants stilled. He gazed around at the crowd. “Everybody clean yourselves up! Let me see your best behavior.”
Immediately, the Underworlders scrambled to comply. In minutes they went from disorderly, slovenly monsters to sleek and modest creatures, standing straight and in tidy rows and columns, their spindly limbs at their sides and blank expressions on their faces. They even arranged themselves in height order, the shortest goblins at the front, all the way to the looming trolls at the back. Not a single creature twitched as they waited for their next command.
Krasimir waved his hand. “Dismissed. Everyone back to vhat you vere doing before.”
The Underworlders scattered, and Krasimir and Adolf had the lab to themselves again.
Krasimir eyed the wilted Ashwyn still in her glass prison. “I need to know how it vorks on ze Phantasmians,” he mused. “Adolf, are zere some of ze little ones still in storage here?”
The werewolf shrugged. “I think there were a few jars we used to recapture the ones that revived at the museum somewhere.”
“Go get them.”
Adolf obliged, returning a few minutes later with a jar sparkling with pricks of light. Krasimir loosened the lid just enough for the eager pixies to hear him. “When I remove ze lid, you vill not try to escape. You vill do vhat I say.” He watched them. “Blink your lights if you understand.”
Little flurries of colored lights winked off then back on again. Krasimir removed the lid, but rather than trying to flee, every fairy remained inside the jar.
“Come out and assemble before me!” Krasimir Schlimme commanded.
The fairies obeyed at once, forming a neat array before him, just as the goblins had done.
Seeing the screen of light, Krasimir couldn’t resist reaching a hand through it and pushing the fairies aside as they hovered. They didn’t resist him either, staying put in their displaced positions. Krasimir pushed together groups of fairies, turning them into larger clusters of light. “Zis is fun!” he chuckled to Adolf. “Make yourselves into a three-dimensional pyramid matrix!” he commanded.
The fairies flew into formation with speed and accuracy.
“Make a car vith vheels zat spin.”
The fairies even included two who represented passengers in the car. The fairies forming the wheels spun slowly.
“Can you make an animal?”
They did so, first a fish, then an elephant with a curling trunk. They moved in unison, like an extremely intelligent school of fish. He knew the ability of the counterfeit Phantasmagyth was fading when a few fairies started drifting out of formation. Krasimir held up the jar. “Fly back into ze jar, if you please,” he told them.
All the fairies swept inside, allowing him to fasten the lid on once more and hand it to Adolf. “Back in zey go, but zey haf given me ideas for a whole new show.” He seized a notebook from his work table and began jotting down a plan.
“A new show?” Adolf grunted. “You’re going back to the carnival? What about the kid?”
“Never mind him!” Krasimir snarled at the reference to Lewis. “He is not allowed anywhere near my menagerie. He vill not be a problem. Ve return tomorrow to ze circus. I have a new show to rehearse!” He grinned to himself as the musings took shape in his mind. “It will be shocking, terrifying—I’ll give zem a show that everyone’s going to be talking about for years to come!” He lifted the fake Phantasmagyth and rubbed a dull spot with his handkerchief. “And it is all thanks to my own genius in replicating ze most powerful magic item in zeir world! Oh, how clever I am!” He threw back his head and laughed.
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