Chapter 35 Time to Lock In and Throw Away the Key
PENELOPE, LOOK OUT!” MY brOTHER screams.
Every ounce of self-preservation I have is telling me to do the same thing. But I don’t. I don’t move. I don’t fight. I don’t so much as breathe.
Instead, I stay where I am, looking the snake straight in its flat, black eyes as it lunges toward me, mouth wide open and surprisingly large fangs on full display. Sure, my stomach twists and my whole body tenses up in anticipation of the trauma caused by a venomous snakebite.
Except…it doesn’t bite me.
Instead, at the last second, the snake shifts so that one of its fangs only slides across my cheek instead of sinking into it.
“Ellie!” Fifi yells.
I feel the burn as its fang scrapes off a few layers of my skin, but the agony I was expecting never comes. And neither does a second, even angrier attack.
Nor do the snakes retreat, like they did on the bridge. Instead, they disappear, poofing into thin air like they never existed. And so does everything else as we all plummet several feet to the ground.
I hit the grass hard enough to have the wind knocked out of me, and I spend several precious seconds struggling to drag a breath back into my lungs.
When I’m finally able to breathe without excruciating pain, I roll to a sitting position and look wildly around for something—vines, snakes, Greek monsters on parade.
I don’t know, anything that gives me a clue as to what’s about to happen next.
But all I can see is the wooden box. Only this time it’s wide open.
So either this is a trick, or it actually accepted that haphazard snakebite that wasn’t actually a bite as proof of something I can’t begin to guess.
The second idea doesn’t seem likely, but as the light around the key starts to blink like some kind of countdown is afoot, it seems just as likely that both guesses are wrong. Which means one of us is going to have to take the risk of angering this place again by reaching for the key.
If I’m wrong, if all we’re doing is making another mistake, then we’ve got an even bigger problem.
Because something worse than vines and snakes is going to come at us, and I have no idea how we’re going to deal with it.
Especially since Rhea is currently kneeling on the ground, yelling her head off.
“Are you okay?” Paris shouts to be heard over her screams, and for once his hair looks as wild as mine. Then again, so do his eyes as he runs toward me.
“I’m fine. It didn’t get me.” I lift a hand to my cheek, just to be sure.
Fifi studies me for a second, and she must be okay with what she sees, because she turns to the still caterwauling Rhea and tries to comfort her. Paris soon joins in, but the whole time they’re trying to calm her down, they both look like they’re about three seconds from losing it too.
The snakes really were a lot.
“We need to end this,” Arjun says, climbing to his feet and walking toward the box.
“What if we still can’t get the key?” I ask him as I get to my feet too. “What if we unleash something worse?”
“Then we’ll deal with it,” he says matter-of-factly. “But doing nothing isn’t going to get us out of here.”
“It’s not going to get us killed, either,” Sullivan interjects. “What about what comes out of that chest next?”
They’re both right, both thinking what I’ve been thinking. In the end, I decide to go with Arjun’s idea. “We have to try,” I tell Sullivan.
But as soon as Arjun steps forward to reach for the key, a shiver of something unsettling works its way down my spine. And that’s when I realize we’re doing the same thing Rhea did to us. Making the choice without checking to see if everyone else is on board.
“Wait,” I tell him as I turn toward the others. “What do you think, Paris? Should we try for the key or wait to see what happens?”
My brother just shrugs. “I don’t know.”
I move on to my roommate. “What about you, Fifi?”
She sighs, toying with a few beads at the bottoms of her braids. “I think we have to try, right?”
I want to ask what Rhea thinks, but she’s still face down on the ground having a full-blown meltdown, so I’m not sure now’s the right time.
So I turn back to Sullivan, my brows raised. “You still think we should wait?”
“I think we should do whatever’s going to get us out of here.”
“Okay, then.” I look back at Arjun.
He nods and steps forward, reaching for the key. But his hand passes right through it, like it’s not even there.
“Does that mean—” Fifi’s voice cracks with fear while everything inside me does the same thing.
I have no idea what’s going to happen next, but it can’t be good.
Arjun tries for the key again, shoving a frustrated hand through his hair when he once again can’t grab it.
“It’s okay,” I tell him, stepping forward to try to pull him back before whatever’s going to fly out of that trunk can get him.
But the moment I move, the key lights up until it’s glowing almost as brightly as Fifi’s disco apple.
“I think that means you should try,” Sullivan tells me, his eyes wide as he looks between me and the key.
I don’t want to—I really don’t want to be the one responsible for something terrible happening again.
But I also don’t want to be here forever.
So I take a couple more steps forward until I’m standing right in front of the chest. Then I try to grab the key, even though I know my hand will pass straight through.
Only it doesn’t. Instead, I feel the cold brass of the key against my palm and I wrap my fingers around it. Seconds later, I pull it from the chest and the chest slams closed.
“You did it!” Fifi crows, and she’s jumping up and down like I just won the lottery. I’m not so sure. It seemed too easy. But I keep my face blank to hide the fact that I’m freaking out as I move toward the teal door we used to get here.
Breath held, hand shaking, I slide the key into the lock and turn it.