“Look, you…you…doll baby! Gimme back that bag, or I’ll—”
Gum Baby froze. She turned slowly toward me and tilted her head. “What’d you say?”
“Give me back—”
“No, hush, before that. What’d you call me?”
I licked my lips. “Uh…nothing. I just wanted my friend’s—”
“Oh no, it wasn’t nothing. It can’t be nothing now. You said it. You let the words come out of your mouth, and you need to stand by them. For as long as you have legs to stand on, anyway. So come on, big boy—what’d you say? Huh? WHAT’D YOU SAY?”
The wind died down and the Bottle Tree stood up straight again, as if the forest wanted to hear my answer. I looked around, suddenly wishing for a witness, or a shield. “Um, I just, I mean, I may have said, or called you, a doll—”
Gum Baby leaped toward me with a murderous scream.
“CALL GUM BABY A DOLL, WILL YOU? SAP ATTACK! TWO SAP ATTACKS! GUM BABY HOPES YOUR HANDS STICK TO YOUR FACE FOREVER AND YOU HAVE TO EAT WITH YOUR ELBOWS. TRIPLE SAP ATTACK, YOU…YOU…GIANT TURTLE-FACED THISTLE-HEAD!”
“Ow, stop it!” I fell backward as she scrambled up my legs and onto my chest. She unleashed a miniature onslaught, and it took everything I had to shield myself as her tiny fists and feet pummeled me. Finally, I batted Gum Baby away with my hand, but she got up and ran at me again. I grabbed one strap of the pack, ignoring the sticky residue squelching under my hands, and pulled it out of the tree, stumbling backward. Gum Baby hung on to the other strap, and the weirdest game of tug-of-war ensued in the middle of the clearing. “Let go!”
“You let go! Gum Baby’s on a mission.”
“A mission? What mission?”
“None of your business, fool!”
I swung the backpack around, trying to dislodge the thief, but Gum Baby held on with grim determination. I slammed it into the ground, whirled it over my head, but no matter what I did, I couldn’t dislodge her. I let a growl of frustration escape and ran toward the Bottle Tree.
Gum Baby flapped behind me. “Oh, you’re running away now? You better! Gum Baby was just about to—Hey, what’re you doing?”
I swung the backpack in a circle and slammed it—and Gum Baby—against the trunk. She yelped, then wrapped herself even more tightly around the strap.
“Wait, stop it, fool! You’ll damage the tree!”
“I don’t care,” I growled. “Give me my backpack!” I whipped it into the tree again.
The bottles shook and clinked together, echoing like haunted wind chimes. I began to whip around again for an even heavier slam.
“No, you idiot, you’re fixing to get us both—”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” I shouted. I grabbed a handful of the backpack, balled my fist around the strap, and punched the Bottle Tree with all my might.
Crack
The punch smashed into the large blue bottle near the top, shattering the glass. The backpack ripped, Eddie’s journal tumbled out, and bright green light flared in a blinding flash.
Heat.
Wind.
Everything blasted me at once.
But beneath it all, I heard a sinister laugh. The pressure on my shoulders suddenly disappeared. Out the corner of my eye, I saw a shadowy shape ooze from what was left of the broken bottle on the ground and creep along the grass. The wind howled in agony, the forest roared in pain, and a chasm ripped open at the foot of the tree. A giant sucking sound filled the clearing, like air rushing toward a hole.
The fissure split and grew, like those scenes in disaster movies when an earthquake cracks the streets apart and chases the hero.
I tried to get away, but the tear in the earth widened to reveal a swirling coal-red tunnel of fire. It burned like a thousand suns, and at its edge, something glowed a soft green.
I sucked in a breath.
Eddie’s journal teetered there precariously.
“No!” I shouted, just as Gum Baby yelled, “The stories!”
Gum Baby leaped from the backpack to the book.
Without thinking, I dove for it, too, desperate to rescue Eddie’s journal from the flames and from Gum Baby.
My fingertips grazed the cover just as Gum Baby plopped a sticky hand on it. I started to yell at her, but then I realized, too late, that we were falling.
We’d tumbled into the glowing slash in the ground. We plummeted without slowing one bit, spinning and twisting at dizzying speeds. It was like a sink of burning anger, and we were swirling down the drain.
I tried to scream, but the forest’s pained roar drowned me out. Gum Baby clutched my wrist tight as we fell for what seemed like forever, dropping like stones through the whirlpool of fire.
PAIN.
Confusion.
Fear.
Darkness.
And then, echoing all around me, a voice: “Hey now, hey now…I gotcha, big man, I gotcha.”
A match was struck, and a lantern flared to life overhead. The soft yellow glow didn’t eliminate the shadows so much as it outlined them. I was lying in the middle of a rustic room, like the inside of a cabin or a wooden shed. Who was speaking? I couldn’t make out much except for the shadows and that lantern.
Water dripped from the ceiling, and the smell of old swamp and rotting vegetation filled the air. My eyes started to tear up, and I coughed as the vapors got into my nose and lungs.
“Easy now, Tristan. That is your name, right?”
“W-who’s that?” I asked in mid-cough.
“Aw shoot, big man, I’m nobody. Just didn’t want you to fall to your death, is all. I saved you, just like you saved me.”
My chest burned, but I stood up and wiped the tears from my eyes. “Where are you?”
One shadow detached from the rest, but it had no shape. It oozed up, and I shuddered as a familiar pressure gathered around my shoulder blades. This was the thing from the Bottle Tree forest, from the broken bottle. I’d recognize that feeling of despair anywhere.
“I saved you?” I asked.
“You did, Tristan, so I had to repay the favor. I’ve been waiting for you. You got something I need, and if we work together—shoot, this whole world can be ours. They won’t know what hit ’em. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Why don’t you hand me that book of yours and we can get started.”
“Book?” I shook my head, then froze. Eddie’s journal. The fight. Gum Baby. I whirled around, looking for the little terror and my backpack, but all I saw was darkness.
“Yes. The book.” The voice went from smooth to impatient. “Where is it?”
“I—I don’t know.” I dropped my head into my hands. “I lost it. I need to find it.”
A growl echoed around the room before it faded to a soft purr. “Yeeeeah. You do that. I need that book, Tristan, so when you find it, you bring it to me, and we can get this party started, you hear? Don’t you tell a soul, boy, and don’t dally…. Naw, don’t you try and play me one bit. ’Cause I’ll know.”
Wind whistled in my ear, and my clothes fluttered as if a huge gust was blowing through.
“Wait, where am I? Who are you?”
Why was everyone after Eddie’s journal? Why did this…thing need it so badly?