“Come on Willow,” hissed a young girl, “we only need a few drops.” She glared to a nervous girl nervously holding a straight razor and a small bowl.
“Come over here and do it yourself Wendy,” Willow snapped before turning back to her job.
Wendy only turned to look at a large, red flower she treasured. “Don’t worry Abigail,” she told the flower, “we’ll be out of this miserable place as soon as Willow brings us some blood…”
Just a little nick, she thought, just remember how much he laughed at you for figuring a way out of this mess. Willow smirked as she recalled the slumbering man she leaned over, how wrong he’d be for yelling at her and Wendy earlier that week.
All it took was a brief touch of skin against the razor for her to draw blood from the man and carefully collect it in her bowl. Without a thought to the contrary, Willow discarded the razor and returned to Wendy. “You can’t keep carrying that around Wendy, Abby isn’t coming back.”
Wendy turned to look at Willow, a vacant look cast upon her face. “Abigail is like your lighter Willow. She’s always with me.”
Willow sat down next to her, her lighter briefly rubbing against her leg as she did. She too remembered something strange happening to her, how she stared at her lighter for hours while a small group of trees burned around her. “I’m sorry Wendy, but I don’t know if you’ll be able to call her when we get back. I think it’s this place and all the bad things that happen here. It lets us do these things but we’re losing ourselves bit by bit.”
Wendy nodded. “I suppose you’re right. I’ll just go back home. Alone.”
Willow hugged her. “You can stay with me and my mother, she has a nice little place right by the Sacramento train station.” She checked around in her pockets and counted a few coins. “I have about five dollars here. Do you have anything?”
Wendy rested her flower in her lap and checked her own pockets. “I have a little left from after I ran away,” she carefully examines a few before throwing a few to the side. “Well, some that could actually still be called money.”
Willow looked up at her hand as Wendy began counting.
“Seven, eight,” Wendy smiled, “I still have nine dollars. Do you think it’s enough for both of us?”
Willow nodded. “Now,” she stuffed the coins back in her pocket and stood up, “let’s get this over with and leave this place behind us.”
Wendy smiled as she watched Willow work around large effigies of her and Wendy, drawing an elaborate symbol around them. “At least you get to set something on fire one last time Willow.”
A very thin smile crept onto Willow’s face but faded before she turned to see Wendy. “How about we do it together? You know, I don’t think all those math lessons,” she glared towards the still bleeding man, “he gave me completely stuck. We should make sure we get it right the first time.”
Wendy smiled pleasantly as she got up. She dusted her dress off before stowing her flower into her bag and taking both hers and Willow’s to her co-conspirator’s side. “So… torches?”
A large grin and quickly drawn lighter was all the incentive she needed from Willow to pull two large sticks out from between jars of jerky and honey. Hoisting her bag over her shoulder she offered one to Willow and with lit torches they set wood and straw figures of themselves ablaze, vanishing on the spot in a mixture of shadowy hands and blinding light.
*****
“Stone,” said Wendy blankly after everything came back into focus.
“A hall of stone and,” Willow brought her torch close to a stone wall, “all sorts of drawings on the walls.”
Wendy looked around the wall opposite her. “Do you see any humans on yours?”
“No, lots of horses though and some strange monkey… cat… thing. Why does it have a hand on its tail?”
“Willow, I think you might have been off a little.”
“Well, we can’t do that thing again without the horn of a volt goat, the fang of a spider queen, and a varg’s ear.”
“Do we have any of that?”
Willow looked around and set her torch in a nearby sconce. “That should hold it while I check.” She slung her bag off her back and looked through it. “Let’s see, we have some gold, bit of honey, some jerky- oh, I found a bottle of gunpowder, I wondered where that went. Anyways, there’s some more food in here, some silk, and I actually do have a varg ear. I think.” She pulled out the odd, misshapen wolf ear. “It might not be a varg ear, but I’m pretty sure it is. Hmmm… let’s figure out what we have before we get our bearings.”
Wendy nodded and took her pack off. “I have some perishables, rope, some of those little electronic gadgets, some saltpeter, Abby’s flower, some seeds, another spare torch, and an axe.” As Wendy looked back to Willow, the firestarter was now holding a bottle of black goo. “You brought that nightmare stuff? Don’t you think the man in black will find us if we have it?”
Willow sighed and stuffed it back in her bag. “We need it to get home so I just took a little extra. It’s not like Wilson will miss it now that it’s just him and that crazy old lady. I found some volt goat horn, but it’s broken in a few pieces and I don’t think we should be guessing with this sort of stuff.”
“I guess but-”
“Who’s over there,” called a voice. As the two girls, Wendy with torch in hand, turned towards where it came from and were met with a brown pegasus with a monochrome mane and a pith helmet looking at them.
“Willow, she’s such a pretty pony isn’t she.” Willow didn’t answer, in fact she looked as though the mere sight of the pegasus struck her mute. “Anyways, that’s Willow and I’m Wendy. Who are you?”
“This is no place for anyone to be just wandering around in,” harped the pegasus. “Ahuizotl could see you and then you’ll be in trouble.”
Willow blinked and packed her bag. “Then why are you here,” she finally asked.
“I can’t let him go running around doing whatever he wants!”
Wendy stood up and pulled the red flower out of her bag. “Willow, you think we can give her a hand?”
As Willow reached to get her torch again she paused and moved her hand into the fire. “Yes,” she said before turning to face them with a small fire on her sleeve, “I suppose we can…”
