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Harriet leaned against the bars of the latest cage they had made it through, trying to keep a tight rein on her emotions. It was a strange feeling, knowing that how she felt could influence anything. If any one of them became too frustrated, it could stop them in their tracks. If they started to feel defeated, they could find themselves trapped.
Of course, after hours of effort and wandering, it was getting much harder to exercise control and focus. For starters, it was quite a while before Evan revealed that he was not looking for a way out, but was in fact looking for his uncle. His whispered words exchanged with the various "residence" of the cages seemed, at first, like he was attempting to piece together the way out; it wasn't until he started being unable to bend the bars any longer that Harriet realized it was something else.
She didn't have any problem bending the bars herself. She strolled up with confidence and bent the ones causing Evan to struggle, and she did so using only one hand. She would do so for a little while, cage to cage, until Evan seemed ready to do so again himself. After a while, he'd become frustrated again and Harriet would take his place. The cycled continued until Harriet was beginning to wonder whether it had been hours or days since they first started.
Still, Harriet didn't want to pressure him for information. It wasn't easy to fathom that there was over twenty years of life experience in her middle-school student, but it was starting to become believable. He was holding his composure and displaying strong leadership skills. Harriet even found herself worried about undermining him, especially in front of Vicky.
Who, in herself, was becoming a deeper and deeper enigma. She seemed to have a set to her jaw ever since they left. No, before that even. Since she woke up, something seemed to be off about the girl. She still seemed to have her signature sarcastic wit, but it wasn't the same. It was almost like she wasn't enjoying it anymore, that it was a reflex instead of a defense mechanism. Was she hiding something? What
Evan stood up from his dark corner and the stranger in the adjacent cage. "There's no sign of him. This isn't making sense anymore."
Evan's skin started to take a dark tone. It almost looked like leprous. Actually, scratch that, it was turning leprous. Harriet stood up, but it was Vicky who moved in front of him first.
"You're in a place where your thoughts and emotions turn into reality, and you expect things to make sense?" she snapped at him. "Evan, think about it. You've been gone almost a year from here, right? That's over fifteen hundred years here. Anything could have happened.
"You want to find your uncle? Then we need to get to bar. If we can find him anywhere, that's going to be the best place to start."
"You don't understand," he said, shaking his head. "I left him here! It's my fault he was stuck here for a millennia!"
"No, it wasn't. He could have followed you. He didn't. He made his choice. Now make yours. Stop trying to figure out if the hopeless know him, and let's go where we can do something about it!"
Evan sat down on his haunches. "And what then? The goblins will be there. How can we--"
He was interrupted as he was suddenly lifted into the air. Vicky had grabbed him by his shirt and had hefted him off the ground. "You are not allowed to give up. We are going to make it. Which way is it?"
Evan was shocked. His skin stopped flaking, but was now ghost white. Without looking away from her, he pointed off into the dark distance. His eyes continued to stay wide, but he managed to regain color as she turned her attention away.
Vicky lifted up a hand, pointing her palm out towards the distances. There was a humming sound, the kind that's normally felt rather than heard, almost like there was a change in air pressure. Vicky bared her teeth, let out an growl of effort, and suddenly something passed by Harriet, moving so fast it almost knocked her from her feet.
All of the bars in the direction the girl had pointed had bent away, as if a giant heavy ball had simply bowled through them.
Evan and Harriet could only stare, glancing back and forth from the holes to the tiny girl in front of them. "Vicky..." she began, when she realized what was going on. She needed to get to the Precipitous Bar. Something Evan had said had gotten to her, giving her energy that Harriet found frightening. Hope can make you powerful. What could be so important?
"Don't worry," Vicky said, interrupting Harriet's train of thought as she started striding through the cages, half-dragging Evan. "I'll handle the goblins."
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