Chapter 27 Doomspiral
Doomspiral
When I was little, I loved to sit at the top of the spiral staircase leading to the lower levels of the school and push a marble down the top step. I would listen to it bounce, stair by stair, echoing, going around and around, until it finally rolled to a stop somewhere far below.
The depths of Swancrest were always a mystery to me: I knew an old armory lay far beneath us, full of the weapons we didn’t need anymore now that there was peace.
It was just one more place I wasn’t allowed to visit, even as I grew older. I never wanted to disobey Robin, so I never went down.
Until now.
My armored steps echo against the wide stone stairs, taking me around and around, deep into the underbelly of the school.
I’m a third of the way down. My head is clear. I’m ready to confront Robin.
But suddenly the stairs beneath me fold away, the stone turning smooth. My feet fly out from under me. My back hits the rock with a painful jolt. My breath is stolen from my lungs, and I reach out as I slide downward, fingers scraping against the curved walls for purchase as I fight to slow down.
But there’s nothing to hold on to. My armor scrapes against the stone in an earsplitting scream as my body whirls faster, around and around. All I can do is watch as the rest of the staircase below me transforms. The walls cave in, leaning together. The school’s gothic arches become gaping mouths.
There’s a landing coming up fast, a break in the stairs that leads to one of the lower levels.
Maybe if I can reach its ledge, I can stop myself and regroup.
I fling my arms toward the landing’s edge in a desperate attempt to get off this slide of doom, only to see that the floorboards in the hall past the landing are splintering into bared fangs, ready to devour me.
I haul myself back. I guess I’m not getting off this slide that easily.
What will I soon be falling into? A coil of snakes? A horde of wolves? A bed of teeth?
I inhale sharply as something rips through the stone at my side with an explosive crack. Many more follow. The flattened stairs have started to re-form—but only at the edges. The middle of the stairs remains smooth. And those sharp corners… they’re getting closer.
They’re going to trap me, smother me, bury me in these steps like a stone tomb.
But I’m done flailing and sliding. I grip my mother’s sword—and stab it through the rock with all my might.
My shoulder nearly pops out of its socket as my body comes to a sudden stop. My sweaty palm grips the heart-shaped pommel, until I’m holding it firmly in my grasp, pulling myself up. I stagger to my feet, placing each one on separated bits of newly emerged stair.
I’m not going to tumble directly into Robin’s clutches like I’ve been caught in a snare.
I start descending again, carefully, using those scraps of steps, jumping to each one, sword up and ready to face her.
For four stories, there is only silence.
Then there’s the faintest sound of grating metal far above. Barely a whisper. I come to a stop. My gaze slides up the swirling steps. I squint into the shadows. Nothing.
I take a step forward.
Then I scramble back.
Just in time to avoid being crushed by a massive knight who lands before me, crouched, with so much force the stone splinters beneath its feet. It stands to its full height, towering before me.
I know this knight.
I’ve hidden behind it during countless games of hide-and-seek. I’ve pressed my forehead against its steel, waiting for Robin to find me. It’s one of the suits of armor that line the hallways… now come to life.
In a streak of silver, another knight shoots down from above and lands behind me, making me jump. Then another.
I’m cornered.
One after another, they raise their swords.
Run. I listen to the voice of reason in me and throw myself forward, between the scraps of steps, through the knights’ legs, down the sliding staircase I fought to get off of.
The knights are quick behind, using the corners to bolt down the edges of the staircase, stone cracking beneath their strides.
We’ve reached the lower depths now. There’s hardly any light beyond the enchanted pink glow emanating from my mother’s armor. Sounds of heavy steps ricochet off walls that have grown closer and closer, the ring of stairs narrowing like a coil being tightened.
I keep sliding, my shield in front of me, the only protection I have from whatever awaits below.
My sides are exposed. I realize the risk of that when a face begins to bleed through the stone wall, followed by a talon. Then its entire body. It isn’t alone. More of the same creatures soon join it.
I swallow. I know these beings. They’re the gargoyles that usually stand sentry in the courtyard. They must have melted through the walls, coming in from the outside.
“Wow, Robin,” I mutter through my teeth. “You’re really playing dirty.”
They launch toward me, missing my body by inches, hitting the opposite wall as I slide down. Another gets too close; its claws scrape along my raised shield, fangs right in my face for a second before it flies by. I gasp, my pulse hammering. Those teeth would have turned me to ribbons.
The school is an extension of Robin; I know that now. Just as her house was in Dreamland.
And every piece of it is going to try to keep me from reaching her.
Beneath me, the sharp stone begins to jut out in random places, from the wall, from the floor, sending me flying. I turn myself this way and that, rolling out of the way, just barely missing serrated edges, using my shield to block as much of my sides as possible.
One of the gargoyles takes this opening as an opportunity. Its talons glimmer in the light of my armor as it launches from the other direction, ready to shred.
I lift my sword at the last moment, and the rock shatters into pebbles, spurting in a cloud of dust.
But the danger isn’t past yet. Not even close.
To my left and right, silver flashes. The knights have caught up to me. They’re raising swords longer than my limbs.
And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, the once ornately carved stone banister behind them ripples—then turns into a serpent with scales as large as my hands. Its fangs are even longer than the swords.
I swallow.
I’m outnumbered. Outpowered. Cornered. It’s almost pathetic trying to fight. Panic clenches my heart as I lift both my sword and shield, wondering how I’m possibly going to survive this—
Then a strange calm washes over me.
I’ve been at Rock Bottom. I’ve slid down a rainbow. I’ve grown wings. I’ve been in distant worlds. I’ve escaped a prison run by a maniacal lord. I’ve failed and risen.
I’ve learned that “impossible” just means no one else has done it yet.
If I did all that—I can do this. Without panic poisoning my mind, I can think.
As the knights rush toward me from both sides, as gargoyles hurtle from in front, as the snake launches, and as a chandelier at the top of the stairs loosens like a rotten tooth and falls right toward us all—
I think of Anyland.
Robin might be smothering my magic, but even before I claimed my power, I found a way to transform nightmarish creations into daydream fairy tales. I had to reach into my soul, connect with the necklaces…
And believe that bad could always turn good again.
I take a deep breath. As the serpent pounces at me—I pounce back. I jump forward and reach out my hand, hoping my fingers make contact with its scales before its fangs rip through my skin.
Instead of letting fear overtake me, I pour myself full of peace.
I think of my mother and how she was still able to leave pieces of herself behind after she was gone.
How her armor was a reminder of her bravery.
How that memory of her in the forest with the spiders was an insight into her refusal to be turned away or labeled.
How she contained multitudes and became whatever she wanted to be.
Only now do I realize she didn’t make me every outfit for every profession because she wanted me to have a uniform for whatever role I was given—
She wanted me to be all of them.
This journey has turned me into an alchemist—able to turn sadness into strength. Rejection into redirection. Failure into freedom.
Now I’ve become a beacon of all the good things I’ve witnessed, all the transformations I’ve been part of, all the changes I now welcome.
My fingers brush against the cold scales of the snake—
And they turn back into stone.
Something in my heart ignites—a flame refusing to be snuffed out.
Part of my suppressed magic has broken free.
My hand reaches up toward the chandelier about to crush me.
The crystal turns into a swarm of butterflies that flit upward toward the top of the staircase.
Now, on to the knights. Their swords are cleaving toward my head, but I don’t reach for my own.
I just reach out. I press my palms to the flat side of one of the knight’s blades—and it collapses into pieces that stumble down the stairs before being caught along the errant pieces of steps.
I resume my sliding, palms out, skimming the knights’ metal with my fingers as I pass and watching them break apart and tumble.
Until there is only quiet.
No more gargoyles melt through the walls. There is a light in me suppressing them.
Hope in my heart and strength in my soul, I lean into the forward motion of the sliding stairs. I can almost feel Robin’s magic in the air, a heaviness to it that I couldn’t sense through her apparition in my room. Coppery instead of sweet. Shadowy instead of bright.
Fell magic.
I try to fan the flames within me, give them kindling, rally more of my own power in response… but the closer I get, the more that glimmer of fire begins to weaken. Even the pink glow of the shield and sword from my mother dim. Robin’s not only smothering my own power…
But her best friend’s.
There’s no turning back. My body slides down one final set of smooth stone steps—
Then comes to a stop.
I’m at the very bottom of the school, in its darkest underbelly, the old armory.
And there, floating at the very center of the metal weapons, is Robin.