Chapter 2
Where All the Mad Ones Go
“Is she dead?”
“She can’t be dead. Look, right there. Her chest just rose and fell.”
“Breathing? She’s breathing! What a relief!” A pause, and then, “Do you think if I kick her, she’ll wake up?”
That was enough for my eyes to spring open, immediately squinting against the sharp stab of pain at the base of my skull. Thud, thud, thud. It throbbed painfully as I shifted, forcing myself upright to pinpoint the eager voices now threatening me with bodily harm.
Soft grass brushed my palms as I pushed myself to sit, blinking around an open clearing.
It wasn’t much to look at, a green open space sheltered by sparse trees and bushes, but it was beautiful.
The colors were vibrant and crisp, and I was most definitely not in a bookstore anymore.
I scanned around me quickly but saw nobody.
Whoever the voices belonged to must have fled as soon as they’d heard me stir.
“Carl, look! She’s awake,” a voice whispered, startlingly close, yet I still couldn’t see anyone.
“Shut up, Carl. I think she can hear us,” another hissed urgently.
My brow furrowed, not just at the disembodied whispers, but at the revelation that they were both named Carl.
“Hello? Who’s there?” I called out, trying to sound as authoritative as possible.
“Come out right now or else!” It was an empty threat, but maybe the firmness in my voice would fool whoever—or whatever—they were.
A long beat of silence passed. One…two…three.
I nearly thought the Carls had actually vanished this time, until a sudden rustling of grass snapped my attention sharply to my left.
Before I could move, two tiny creatures rapidly expanded, growing until they stood at waist height before me, distinctly dwarf-like.
Each had reddish, bulbous noses, rounded bellies, and vibrant, cerulean eyes that blinked back at me curiously.
“Oh, she definitely sees us now,” said the first Carl, his unruly, strawberry-blonde curls sticking out wildly from his head.
“Obviously,” I muttered dryly, pushing myself up to stand. Brushing the grass from my jeans, I surveyed them warily, then my surroundings. The sky was too bright, the grass too green, and the absurd-looking, dwarf-like men in front confirmed what I had been thinking since I’d first woken up.
“This has to be a dream,” I murmured, more to myself than to them.
“Not this again,” Carl-One groaned, rolling his eyes dramatically. “They always do this.”
“Shhh,” the Carl-Two hissed, elbowing him sharply.
Ignoring their whispered argument, I pinched my arm hard, hoping the pain would jolt me awake. At least, that’s what they did in the movies.
“Fuck!” I cursed when nothing happened, and both Carls gasped, scandalized.
“You can’t just say that!” Carl-One squeaked, his eyes round as saucers.
“Dream rules—I can say whatever I want,” I shot back.
Another pinch for good measure did nothing but confirm the sinking realization this wasn’t going to end anytime soon.
Frustration surged, and I tilted my head back, letting out a scream loud enough to echo.
Another sign of a dream, because this open clearing was definitely not a place where I should be able to hear my own echo.
“I think she’s gone mad,” Carl-One whispered anxiously.
“Much quicker than expected,” Carl-Two muttered thoughtfully.
“Expected?” I snapped, shooting them both a glare hot enough to singe the beards off their pointed chins. “What exactly is going on here? Where am I and who are you? Is there some sort of dream task I need to complete so I can wake up from this nightmare?”
“This isn’t a dream, miss,” Carl-Two ventured gently, as if talking to a frightened animal. “You cannot wake up from this.”
“Right,” I replied skeptically. “I definitely fell down a rabbit hole into fairy land. Not at all plausible that I just fell asleep and dreamed this all up.”
“Rabbit hole?” Carl-One’s eyes widened. “Did the rabbits finally finish their portal?”
“No, dummy,” Carl-Two sighed dramatically. “They don’t have the magic for that. It’s a metaphor.”
“I knew that,” Carl-One huffed, crossing his arms over his chest. Then, very softly, “What’s a metaphor?”
“Focus,” I interrupted, snapping my fingers in front of their faces. “Where exactly am I?”
The Carls exchanged a nervous glance before speaking in perfect, creepy unison, “Foreverland.”
I blinked at them slowly, processing the absurdity of what they had just told me. “Foreverland,” I repeated. “As in, Journey to Foreverland? The book?”
The Carls shrugged helplessly.
“Fine,” I sighed. “I’ll play along. What’s the catch here? Do I have to defeat an evil queen? Rescue a handsome prince from his villainous brother? Slay a dragon?”
Carl-One giggled. “No dragons here.”
“At least, not lately,” Carl-Two added thoughtfully.
“Then what’s the…quest?” I asked, for lack of a better word. “How do I wake up?”
“It would be better if The Guide told you that.”
Of course there would be a guide. This was playing out exactly like a badly written fantasy novel. “Are you just the welcoming committee?”
They ignored my comment, stepping closer. “We’re Carleanious and Carleonious Flister,” Carl-Two said, proudly puffing out his chest. “Twins!”
“We go by Carl,” Carl-One explained helpfully.
“I gathered that.” I looked around helplessly, taking in the pink sky.
Now that I looked at it closer, it was the exact same color of the Journey to Foreverland book I had seen in the bookshop.
Could this really not be a dream? I’d sooner believe dogs could talk than that I would have been pulled into the pages of a stupid book.
“Does everyone else here also share a single brain cell?”
They stared blankly, missing the insult.
“Never mind,” I sighed. If I was going to get out of here or wake up or whatever the hell it was I needed to do, I needed to play by the rules of books.
Romance was my least favorite, but this felt very rooted in fantasy.
And in fantasy, there was always one thing they had in common.
“Lets get on with it then. Why are you two here? Why not have the guide meet me?”
“Its our job to guide the sky girl to their—” Carl-Two elbowed his brother sharply, cutting off his sentence.
“To their what?” I pressed, eyes narrowed.
“Destiny,” Carl-One finished vaguely, eyes darting nervously toward the horizon. My gaze followed his, confusion deepening as I noticed a stark line of darkness advancing rapidly across the sky, stars sparkling ominously. The sight stole the sarcastic retort I had prepared from my tongue.
“What’s that?”
“Nightfall,” Carl-One whispered urgently. “You don’t want to be caught outside the kingdom walls after dark. Trust me.”
Without warning, each Carl grabbed one of my hands, their small grips surprisingly strong. “We must hurry,” Carl-Two insisted.
“Where are we going?” I shouted as I stumbled along with them, forced to break into a run or else risk being dragged along. For men of such small stature, they were surprisingly swift.
“To safety,” Carl-Two called back, glancing fearfully at the advancing darkness.
“And that would be…?”
“Where all the mad ones go,” they shouted together, voices tinged with excitement and not at all winded from exertion.
My heart raced, sneakers pounding against the soft, vibrant grass as we sprinted. The darkness behind us was closing in alarmingly fast, swallowing the meadow inch by inch. In the distance, lights flickered invitingly, drawing us forward.
“Mad ones?” I asked breathlessly. How they were doing this without tiring, I had no clue. “Should I be insulted?”
“Not at all,” Carl-One replied cheerfully, a toothy grin splitting his chubby face. “Madness is rather fashionable here.”
“Lucky me.”
It didn’t take long for the strange little hut to come into view, nestled within an overgrown patch of luminous purple trees.
The closer we got, the clearer it became—certainly not a castle, but rather a whimsical and precariously built structure of wood and stone, with windows of various shapes and sizes scattered unevenly across its facade.
It looked like it had been constructed by someone who hadn’t fully committed to a single architectural style—or sanity, for that matter.
By the time we reached its doorstep, my lungs burned from running, and my legs trembled. The Carls paused, glancing nervously over their shoulders toward the approaching darkness.
“Hurry, hurry,” Carl-One urged, his voice tight with urgency.
“Welcome to the Mad House!” the Carls exclaimed proudly, pulling me inside the door before I had a second to think. I only had a moment to look behind us, but it was long enough to see the darkening sky had caught up to us before the door slammed shut behind me.