Chapter 20 #2
“You said it, sister. I can’t take much more of this. Walking, walking, walking. It’s too much. I feel like your legs are going to fall off. This is exhausting.”
“Try running. Like I have had to so often since meeting you.”
“I hope I don’t have to. I really hope we switch back, because I cannot make a potion in this body. It’s so ungainly.”
“Shh,” Devon said. “I think I hear water.”
They froze, turning an ear toward the side to listen. Paige’s eyebrows shot up. “I hear it, too!”
“Let’s hope the soda plants are nearby,” Dewey said as he continued his march ahead.
“What do they look like?” Paige asked, scanning the crystal foliage near them.
“Blue crystal plant with purple crystal bulbs. We need to harvest the purple bulbs,” Dewey answered.
“I haven’t seen any of those.”
“Me either,” Dewey said, with a hard swallow. “I hope we don’t have to search much longer.”
“My legs aren’t going to give out,” Paige answered.
“No, just because I’m anxious to get a start on my potion. Time’s a-wastin’.”
Paige patted Dewey on the head. “I understand, buddy.”
“Wow, the head pat is annoying,” Dewey said as they approached a stream.
“I’ve actually grown kind of fond of it,” Paige admitted. “But I thought it was annoying at first, too.”
They reached the crystal banks of the stream and stared at the water flowing through the channel.
“The water’s like sludge,” Paige said.
“It’s liquid crystal,” Devon explained. “Thicker than our normal water.”
“There!” Dewey shouted, jabbing a finger across the stream. “I see the soda plants. Paige, fly across and get a few bulbs.”
“What? Seriously?”
“You’ve got wings. I don’t want to get all wet.”
Paige wrinkled her horned nose as she fluttered into the air. “Fine. I get it. I’ve got the wings, so I’ve got to take one for the team.”
“Now you know how I feel. You’re always asking me to fly around and do things.”
Paige launched off his shoulder. “It is pretty cool that you have wings, though. I mean, this is fun.”
She grinned as she buzzed through the air over the thick liquid crystal river and landed on the opposite side.
“Just get the bulbs and get back here before anything happens,” Dewey called.
Devon waved his hands at the dragon trapped in Paige’s body. “Keep it down. We don’t want to attract any bears.”
“So far, so good,” Dewey answered as Paige used her chubby dragon paws to pick a few bulbs. She loaded them in her tiny arms and lifted off as she spun to face them.
“OMG!” she screamed, the bulbs fell from her arms and shattered on the ground as she jabbed a claw behind them. “BEAR!”
Devon and Dewey whipped around, staring at the crystal bear that rose to its hind legs and sniffed in the air.
“Run!” she shouted at them.
“Get the bulbs, Paige!” Dewey shouted. “Quick!”
Paige groaned as she realized she needed to pick new ones. “I dropped them. Oh, no.”
“Hurry!” Dewey called as she dove toward one plant and tugged on a purple flower.
The bear slammed back down to its front legs, with a roar escaping his crystalline throat that sounded almost musical.
Paige froze and glanced at the creature, whose angular purple nose sniffed in the air. “Was that his roar?”
“Stop worrying about that and get the bulbs!” Dewey snapped.
“Right,” Paige answered, returning to her work.
She yanked two bulbs away and tried for a third. It refused to snap off the vine. Her horns wiggled and wings beat hard as she struggled to pull it away. It snapped loose, and she barreled backward across the water.
“Whoa!” she cried as she flew through the air, desperately trying to keep hold of the Astral soda buds piled in her arms.
“Paige!” Dewey shouted as she sailed past, smacking his hands against the top of his head. “Look out!”
She beat her wings in an attempt to stop her progress backward but failed to prevent herself from smacking into the crystal bear.
The animal howled and pawed at its nose as it stumbled back a step. Paige slumped to the ground in a heap.
“Paige!” Devon shouted. “Get out of there!”
Paige shook her head and glanced up, her eyes going wide. She rolled to the side before a giant crystal paw slammed to the ground where she’d just lay.
“Hey, you big bully, leave her alone!” Dewey shouted as he raced forward. Paige rose slowly in the air as she tried to fly away. The bear swiped at her again, but Dewey dashed between them, shielding her.
He waved a fist in the air. “Be gone, you foul beast!”
The bear froze, one paw raised in the air and a snarl on its lips.
Paige poked her head around Dewey’s shoulder. “Ah, what happened?”
“I don’t know,” Dewey said, pushing up his glasses on the bridge of his nose.
“Did he glitch?”
Devon approached the petrified animal, his eyebrows knit tightly. He studied the bear before he ran a finger down its back, then knocked on his head.
“He’s solid.”
“How’d that happen?” Paige asked as she settled on Dewey’s shoulder.
“I yelled at him, and he just seized up.”
Paige leapt from her perch and fluttered down to the hand Dewey had raised at it. She grabbed his wrist and poked a chubby finger at the bracelet.
“This?”
“It’s not the first time a beast has stopped attacking us when they’ve spotted this.”
“But it’s the first time one of them has frozen.”
“Maybe my shouting,” Dewey said.
“Hmm, we need to test this out at a time when we’re not saving your dying family or searching for an artifact that’ll end the world.”
“Right,” Dewey said.
“For now, I think we need to get out of here before whatever you did wears off this thing,” Devon said.
Paige and Dewey nodded as he skirted around the bear. They hurried across the glassy landscape toward the cave with the realm portal. They ducked inside the pink cavern and crossed to the swirling portal.
Paige’s heart pounded as they stood in front of it. She gulped and glanced at Dewey. “Gosh, I hope we’re back to normal when we go through.”
“Give me the bulbs. I’ll head back first.”
Paige handed them to him, and he disappeared from their view. Dewey breathed out a shaky breath, tossing a lock of hair over his shoulder. “Please let me be a dragon again.”
He lifted a leg and stepped into the portal.
It swirled around them as they moved through it.
Paige closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they stood in the cave.
A smile spread across her face as she opened one eye to a slit and raised her hand.
Flesh. Human skin. She was back in her body, with all the right parts.
“We did it!” she exclaimed, popping her eyes open and clapping her hands together.
“Yeah!” Dewey shouted.
“Uh, hate to break up the celebration,” Devon said, “but we have a problem.”
“What?” Paige asked, her grin not fading.
Devon stepped aside, revealing a fourth occupant in the chamber. His pale skin almost glistened under the ethereal light of the Astral portal.
“Oh, good,” he said in a rich British voice, “the gang’s all here.”
“Who are you?” Paige asked.
Dewey flung his arms around her. “A Transylvanian vampire.”