Chapter 16 yoko meshi #2
“Not really. What happened?”
“Exactly what you think,” he replied dryly.
His voice was still soft and low, as if he was afraid to admit it too loud.
“When you went through the door, you dragged me with you. Except the second you left, the door slammed in my face. Literally. One second it was open and then . . .” He shrugged.
“I can’t explain it. And I can’t open it.
I’ve tried everything. I’ve tried pulling it open.
I’ve tried pushing. I’ve tried lock-picking.
I’ve tried closing my eyes. I’ve even tried pinching myself to wake up. ” He shook his head. “Nothing works.”
“Why pinch yourself? Do you think this is a dream?”
He sighed wistfully. “If this was a dream, I wouldn’t have my phone.” I wondered what kind of bad dreams he had. Nightmares of vacations? Of a relaxing weekend at the beach? PTO?
All terrible things to him, I imagined.
He pushed himself to sit up again, and said, “I just realized that I have forgotten your name.”
I didn’t think I ever told him, actually. “It’s Sophie.”
“Sophie . . . right. Sophie,” he repeated slowly, as if chewing on the syllables. “Well, Sophie, it seems like I’m stuck here. Or maybe I’m dead, and this is purgatory.”
“I doubt that.” I leaned back on the bench, giving his predicament a thought. “I think we’re both very much alive.”
He huffed a laugh. “Of course I’m stuck in a magical secret garden in my aunt’s estate. Just another Sunday at Lilymoor.”
“It’s Tuesday, actually.”
He gave me a long-suffering look.
“I understand what you mean,” I quickly added. “If only we could—wait.” An idea struck me. “If you can’t go through a door, have you tried over the garden wall?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Do you take me for someone who wouldn’t have tried? Have you seen these walls? They’re at least ten feet.”
“You’re pretty tall.”
“Not that tall,” he informed me tragically. But then an idea seemed to strike him, and he sat up a little straighter. “Though I could give you a boost, and maybe at the top you could help me up? You seem pretty sturdy.”
I gave him a dry look.
“I don’t mean it as a bad thing,” he quickly amended. “I like women who can probably bench-press me.”
“I can’t do that.”
“You don’t seem like a quitter.”
I barked a laugh. I wasn’t self-conscious about my body—not in the way Harrie was, always glancing in the mirror, always worrying about one bite too many of chocolate cake.
I knew I wasn’t dainty. I never had been.
Never wanted to be. I left waifishness to people who didn’t have to lift twenty-pound bags of topsoil.
I was self-conscious in other ways, and ways he would probably never know.
I pushed myself to my feet. “With our powers combined, we can scale a wall.”
“Hopefully,” he said.
“How charmingly pessimistic.”
He shrugged smoothly. “I never claim to be otherwise,” he said, and together we ducked out of the gazebo and found a patch of wall that looked at least somewhat climbable.
I stared up at the vines crawling toward the top, wondering if I could even get up there. “All right. We’re burning daylight. Hoist me up.”
His mouth twitched into the ghost of a grin. I wondered, fleetingly, what he would look like if he ever decided to smile. The world would riot, I was sure. He moved over to the wall to lean on it. “Don’t forget me when you get up there.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’d leave through the door if I was going to do that.”
“I know. I’m just—it’s silly, right? That I’m scared? Terrified, frankly.”
“I won’t leave you stuck in here,” I said, because that did sound silly. “Whatever’s going on with this garden, I’ll get you out, I promise.” He didn’t look very believing. “You should feel lucky. I never break a promise, Cyrus.”
If I did, I wouldn’t be here at Lilymoor at all.
His shoulders rounded a little in realization. “Rus, if you don’t mind.” Then he laced his fingers together and leaned his back against the wall. “All right, up you go, Sophie.”
Now wasn’t the best time to tell him about my abysmal balancing skills, but he soon figured it out anyway when I almost toppled off. This is easy, I told myself. Perfectly easy. It wasn’t that high—absolutely not. It was not high at all.
Except when I glanced down and the ground spun, I changed my mind. It was very high. Desperately, I caught a vine on the wall and pulled myself back toward it. The vines looked familiar. Oval leaves two at a time. They’d even infested this garden, too, huh.
“Ah, my old enemy,” I muttered—and these even had little buds on the ends. Ones that I finally recognized. Honeysuckle vines. “You’re kidding.”
“What?” he called from below.
“Nothing—um—this can’t be comfortable for you.”
“Just get to the top and help me up,” he groused.
I was glad he couldn’t see my hands white-knuckling the vines.
They weren’t strong—I’d pulled up enough of them to know that tragically well—but there was little else to find purchase on.
He pushed me up a little farther, and I found myself straddling the wall.
The second I did, the world went woozy. I heard Cyrus call my name, but he sounded distant. A thousand miles away. The sun flared one last time, the last rays leaking across the tree-lined horizon, blinding.
I squeezed my eyes tightly closed, but it didn’t stop the spinning.
“Sophie,” Cyrus called from somewhere below me. “Sophie, are you okay?”
“Yes,” I forced out, and cracked open my eyes, and the spinning only got worse.
Less like vertigo, and more like colors themselves were fracturing apart.
Greens broke away from blues, from pinks.
I tried to concentrate on his storm-colored eyes, though I couldn’t tell anymore if they were blue or green or gray. I reached down to him. “Take my hand!”
He backed up a few feet and took a running start. Planted one shoe on the wall, reaching up for me.
I should have caught him.
I was supposed to.
He was right there, so close—as I felt his hand pass mine. Pass through mine. His eyes widened. He’d seen it, too.
Then he was falling and—
And so was I?
I scrambled for purchase on the vines again, but something was pulling me, tugging me, wrenching me off the wall—and I went tumbling over the other side with a scream.