Jayden

Behind the enchanted wall, another corridor filled with funhouse mirrors awaits. Each distorted our image worse than the one before it. At first it was only our limbs that were made out of proportions, a newbie trying and failing to capture the essence of his first gesture sketch. 

Things got worse when our limbs distort so much, we looked like a painting fresh from the hands of Picasso. Then, a scene straight out of one of Dali’s paintings. 

Herman lost his head on the fourth mirror and I had my eyeballs rolling out on the floor right after that—which was so real, I actually stopped to check if they were still intact. By the sixth mirror, I finally convinced myself to stop looking however curious I might be feeling.

“We’re here.” 

Herman stopped in front of the tenth mirror. After the few before it, the way it made our head the size of basketballs attached to bodies the size of caterpillars was innocent enough to coax a long sigh of relief from me.

“After you,” Herman bowed with a flourish, split second before pushing me straight towards the glass surface. It seemed impenetrable at first but once again, the mirror rippled to reveal the room hidden behind it. 

I had to pull the emergency break as soon as my feet crossed over and a jagged bluish-purple rock appeared only centimetres away from the tip of my nose. My legs gave way to the ground while another hand worked futilely to soothe my bruised skin. It took quite a while before my eyes finally adjusted to its dim interior. 

Unlike the hallways of light and golden hues, this was barely lit with glow-in-the-dark mushrooms. Some as small as pennies and more than half were big enough to be car tyres. A teal coloured lizard the size of my palm scurried right across the stone wall, making a mocking sound as it passed.

The musty stench of deserted room mixed with a sickly sweet aroma filled the space. Wisps of purplish smoke curled and licked at our feet. I coughed involuntarily as we inched nearer to the source of it where the wisps thickened from thin strips to puffed clouds, assaulting our senses senseless. 

“What is this place?” I choked on each word while Herman marched on nonchalantly, whistling to a song I have no name for. 

“The Guardian’s lair. Not as elaborated as the rest of the place but the old fella has got a serious case of homesickness so they let him do as he pleases.” 

He glanced around, as if remembering something before shaking his head. “Anyways, don’t be too surprised when you see him. He’s isn’t exactly—” Herman trailed off and tried hand-gesturing. 

Balloons? Sausage? 

“So he’s not…human?” I doubt a spider with twelve scissors legs and a distorted human torso could trigger anything more than a weak wow from me at this point.

Herman stepped sideways through a small passageway between rows of jagged rocks. It looked as if he was willingly walking into the mouth of a dragon with sharp fangs bared. “Far from it.”

While Herman had to slowly inch his body in, I slipped through without a scratch. Not sure if I should be proud or saddened by the fact that my muscle mass had clearly dropped since high school. 

Blue’s voice reached us before her wings came into sight. Beads of crystal in the shape of teardrops glinted faintly from them, the only lighted spot in the otherwise dark cave.

“Oh come on, Eruca. You know I’ll never do anything bad to the tales. We just need to check the shelves. Just for a short, little while. Please—?”

A greenish-blue caterpillar with distorted patterns of lilies on its body was curled atop a mushroom the size of a double bed right at the centre of it all. Blue stood under the mushroom, her frame too small compared to the caterpillar’s. 

Take it from me, the last thing you would want to look at after a hearty breakfast would be the sight of a caterpillar enlarged, its pores clearly visible and its flesh mushing together with each breath. 

The fact that it had a single-lens spectacles dangling from one side of its beady eyes did not help to make it less naked or less goose bumps invoking—no offence to all Cater-folks out there.

Which is also why I have to take my hat off Blue for not cringing at the sight of it. Oblivious to how near she was to the caterpillar’s gazillion, furry hands, Blue continued to pout with her hands clasped together, eyes large with unshed tears and her wings sagged behind her for emphasis. 

The caterpillar wagged its bald brow, inhaling out of its crystal-transparent hookah—the cause of my ragged breathing and Herman’s constant clearing of throat. It exhaled a cloud of the god-forsaken substance and said in a sandpapery voice, “No. Even if we’re both blues, it’s still a no.”

Blue’s face contorted in a way that says ‘The last thing I want will be to be related to a giant caterpillar’ for split seconds before she quickly replaced it with a smile. 

The girl has got talent for this.

“Like you said, we are both blues. So why don’t you give me a little leeway and I’ll get you a pouch of the freshest tobacco leaves from the dwarves?” she stressed in a sing-song voice. 

I tried not to gape but failed miserably the moment Blue untied the emerald pouch she had bought earlier and held it out to the caterpillar. “What is she…?”

Herman shushed me with an amused grin. “Just watch.”

The reason she was beaming all the way at Dwarf’s Village came hurling and slapped my face hard enough to leave a bruise for life. 

In my twenty one years of life, never have I thought I would ever live to witness a fairy godmother bribe her way into a government department. When Herman said fairy tales weren’t really what they were written out to be, he didn’t mean it just literally. 

“You can just send us through the Void. I promise we’ll be gone real quick, you won’t even realize we were here!” Blue probed, pushing the pouch up to the creature’s nose. 

The scale of guilt and desire was clearly having difficulty balancing itself at the back of the caterpillar’s mind as its eyes rolled back, its hookah lowered for the briefest moments. But Blue’s mind game was far from over.

“There’s black cherry and…oh my, there’s milkweed in it too!” she clasped her hands together in glee as if she was the one with tobacco addiction. 

A look of ecstasy flashed across the caterpillar’s wrinkled face as it inhaled the scent that escaped the pouch. 

“Just the way you like it, yes?” Blue pushed and…bam. Right between the eyes.

A minute and twenty seconds later, pouch and information exchanged. The caterpillar blew a puff of bluish-purple smoke that thickened and spread to devour the mushrooms that cushioned the ground. A portal of green formed in its place, crackling with electricity and contrasting red sparks. 

I took an instinctive step backwards. “Are you sure we have to jump into this?” 

Just standing near its gaping mouth made all the hair on my body stand on their ends. Blue’s platinum bundle whipped around her face with life of their own while Herman struggled to keep his bag strung close.

Passing through it will surely fry us all and if not, make a permanent afro out of us. A ginger afro isn’t something you would want to see on the head of someone who had long outgrown his chubby cheeks kiddo stage.

“Well, unless you want to be a permanent resident in Taledom—yes, we have to jump. And yes, that includes you, Reader.” Blue reverted back to her usual no-nonsense self once we were out of the caterpillar’s earshot. Wherever its ears were.

Is this how a real fairy godmother is? Herman shrugged as if answering my inner debate. 

“Last one to go is the caterpillar!” he announced with a wide grin before he too followed Blue into the pool of buzzing energy.

The caterpillar peered down from two feet above me, its eyes dark like two pools of ink watched me with its tentacles bowed in question. Goosebumps rose all over my body again. 

“Son, if I were you, I would get down there before I change my mind. I can’t promise the bargain’s still stand once the portal closes on itself. Take lots outta this old bones just for one of it.”

I took another look, sighed and jumped. Better a half-fried man than a pile of dust when the authorities arrive and arrest me for breaching personal property. 

Blinding blades of laser light danced in front of my eyes. Each stings against my skin felt prickly, dozens of micro-sized needles piercing through at once. Surprisingly it didn’t hurt, at least not in the unpleasant sunburn way.

 I feel instantly invigorated, as if the needles pumped gazillion concentrated espresso into me. Seconds later, my eyelids sprang open on their own, livelier than ever. I found myself in a tunnel void of light where there was nothing but the soft pulsing of an orb of blue light.