Finally, as if giving in to some inevitable fate, he twisted his neck to look behind him.

The thing was very close now, dark and hideous, spinning upside down and right side up again, corkscrewing as it sped toward them, faster and faster. Tick squinted, thinking the panic must have scrambled his brain—what he was looking at didn’t make any sense.

The poem had been more accurate than he’d thought. The train was not a train at all. It wasn’t a car, truck, or plane. It wasn’t even a spaceship. The thing thundering toward them at unbelievable speeds was an animal. The biggest, strangest, ugliest beast Tick had ever seen.

“What . . .” he said, trailing off, knowing his friends couldn’t hear him. Nothing made sense anymore. Nothing.

As the beast got closer, Tick felt the fear in him swell, burning like fire, surging through his veins, hurting him. The animal had at least a dozen sets of thick, muscled legs, almost a blur as they churned back and forth to move the creature in its twisting pattern. Its huge head spun but, impossibly, didn’t turn as quickly as the rest of its body, as if the legs were on springs or gears. Dark, scaly skin covered a hideous head, spikes and stunted bones sticking out in random places, enormous teeth jutting from its mouth.

As it approached within a half-mile, then a quarter-mile, Tick felt more scared than ever before, despite the things he’d been through. His mind couldn’t come up with any possible explanation why a gigantic glass tube would exist in the middle of the desert, made for a terrible beast to run through at ridiculous speeds. Confusion and fear mingled together inside his brain, squeezing his thoughts until his head pounded with a drumming pain.

Wink us away, he thought. Time’s almost up, wink us away. Wink us away. WINK US AWAY! The wind, the noise—the horrible noise. What is making that stupid noise? He thought he heard a scream, maybe two. Maybe it was him.

When the beast was only fifty feet away, growling and snapping its jaws and twisting and pumping its powerful legs, bulleting toward them, everything went crazy.

For the slightest of moments, a hush swallowed the area, the noise ending in an abrupt clap of empty silence. Then a booming, deep toll, like millions of huge bells and French horns playing at once, rang out, drowning out all other sound. Tick let go of Paul and Sofia and clapped his hands over his ears. The volume became unbearable; the ache in his head became a splitting pain behind his eyes.

The entire tunnel rocked upward and crashed back to the ground, sending a web of cracks shooting in all directions, spreading like a branching tree with the sound of ice breaking over a frozen lake. Tick crashed to the ground, his knees buckling from the impact; Paul fell on top of him, then Sofia.

Somehow Tick got out the words, “Stay in the box!”

In both directions, the tunnel started warping—impossible waves rippling in the glass up and down its length. The massive beast had stopped a few feet away, its many legs coming to a rest on the bottom of the tube. Its head swiveled around at the chaos as if it were as frightened as the humans. The deep, vibrating horn-like sound continued to boom through the air.

Tick and the others scrambled to the center of the square and clasped arms around each other, huddled on top of the still-glowing words of the poem. Everything shook, much worse than before. The glass rippled and cracked; the tunnel bounced in places like a writhing worm. The beast let out a roar, its huge mouth opening to show dozens of teeth; saliva flew everywhere. Still, the sound of it was nothing compared to the clanging, ear-piercing toll of the mysterious bells.

“What’s happening?” Sofia shouted. Tick barely heard her and had no answer.

The creature moved toward them, anger ignited in its black eyes that looked through a hooded brow of horns and scales. Almost on top of them, it roared again, this time louder. The air reeked of something foul and rotten.

“Stay in the box!” Tick shouted again. Wink us away. Wink us away. WINK US AWAY!

The beast lunged at them, its legs catapulting it into the air. Its outermost horn came within inches of Tick’s face when something suddenly slammed the whole creature away from them and against the wall of the tunnel to their right, where the door still stood open—though it was way too small for the beast. The glass exploded outward, the huge animal crashing through and into a steep desert dune.

As it landed, sending up a massive spray of sand, large sections of the tunnel began melting into liquid, forming huge flying globs that looked like molten silver as they moved through the air. More and more of them appeared, completely destroying the tunnel except for the small spot on which Tick and the others stood. All at once, the melted glass hurtled toward the monster, engulfing the beast completely. The liquid hardened back into glass, tinkling and crackling.

As quickly as it had started, everything stopped. Tick sat next to Paul and Sofia, all of them squeezing each other, gasping to catch their breath. Only a few dozen feet away stood a horrific sculpture of glass, twisted and bent, parts of the poor animal’s body sticking out here and there. One large horn jutted from the front, pointing at them as if it had all been their fault.

No one said a word. They had stayed in the square. They had done what they were supposed to, despite everything.

A few seconds later, someone winked them away to another Reality.

Chapter

20

An Invitation

Mistress Jane walked through the darkening woods, enjoying the smells of the forest and fresh air more than she thought she would. She’d rarely ventured out of the Lemon Fortress since losing her Barrier Wand to the Realitants, too busy working and planning. Too busy thinking.

A bird cawed in the distance, a shriek that sounded like someone being tortured. She faltered a moment, then stepped over a log and continued walking. There you go again, she thought. You can take anything and see the worst in it. Why couldn’t she just hear the sound of a bird and appreciate the beauty in it—the joy of nature? When had she become so dark and morbid? How had it gotten this bad?

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, loving the strong scent of pine. Such simple things used to please her, make her happy. Until her mission to find the Utopian Reality consumed her and turned her into what she’d become. Someone feared and hated. When it came down to it, Jane didn’t like herself very much. Not one bit.

She reached a sudden break in the trees, the place Frazier had described to her. He’d wanted to come with her, insisted on it with more bravery than usual. Jane had finally ordered him to clean the kitchens for being obstinate. If anyone could take care of themselves in the Thirteenth Reality, it was Mistress Jane.