8

They fell for what seemed to be an eternity towards safety. When they landed, they were surprised, to say the least, to find themselves under the Parker's Seafood building.

"Peter's Creek?" Henry asked, as he crawled out from behind the rocks and looked around. "Well, we're quite a bit off, to say the least," he laughed and stretched, taking a deep breath. "Told you the other side has a strange sense of direction."

"You're telling me," she said. Cynthia looked around at the familiar location and couldn't help but start breaking into a fit of laughter. Life seemed so simple at the point. She had gone through so much in a day and learned more than she needed to about her life in her world as well as the other side she briefly visited. Everything fell into place in the strangest way and in a way, it was hilarious to her.

She had doubted herself for so long. She had pretended that nothing had happened, and now, as a result, she was rewarded with knowing she was indirectly responsible for the kidnapping and death of at least twelve young girls. No one would ever find their bodies. No one would ever know where they were. The pain of realizing that, made her laugh even louder and harder than before. It wasn't funny in any way; however, it was the only thing that she could do to keep the tears from streaming down her face. She had to be a strong girl; she had to finish the quest given to her. She would see this to the end, and whether or not she died didn't matter to her in the least. What mattered was everything would come to an end, and her conscience could rest easy.

"You alright there?" Henry asked, a hint of worry tinting his voice for the first time. "I know this is a lot to take in, so just relax, alright?"

"It's all my fault. All I had to do was listen to him and it wouldn't have lead to this in the end. I wouldn't have dragged you or any of those girls into this. If only I had known. If only I had known." Her laughter had turned into shaking sobs as she saw the faces of those girls in her mind every time she closed her eyes.

"There's no way you could have known any of that was going to happen to you," Henry said, putting his arm around her shoulder. "You were young when it happened, there was no way you could have foreseen this happening."

"But all I had to do was stay put," she screamed as tears streaked down her dirt caked face. "All I had to do was just listen and none of this would have happened. Do you know how easy that would have been? Do you know that all I had do was entertain myself for another half hour or so and everything would be dandy right now. I'd still believe in magic without having to have any of this happen, no one would be dying, you wouldn't be risking your life. There's so much I could fix if I had just been a good girl!"

A sharp slap across her face silenced her. She stood there in shock, recovering from what Henry had just done. "Look," he began, holding her by her shoulders. "I don't care what happened in the past. There's no way we can travel back in time and fix anything right now. What matters is we know what's going on and we're the only ones who can fix it in the now. What matters is you get a hold of yourself and think straight." He looked at her sternly before continuing, "Look, I know you said Tate chose you as his playmate, but you have to understand that the forest prince doesn't go around choosing playmates on a whim. He also wouldn't trust you with his one and only steed if he didn't believe that you could do what you're about to do, alright? So calm the fuck down and think while we walk, alright? Happy's is at least an hour's walk from here."

She took a deep breath and let his words to sink in. He was right. Panicking and blaming the past wasn't going to do anything about the now. She could gripe about it later. What mattered was she needed to find leads to where the queen resided. She assumed that it had to be somewhere near Parker's. From what she could remember from her time there, the largest sounding thing approached from where the entrance at Happy's was. However, something told her that it wouldn't make sense that the queen's chambers would be down in that area as well. Something nagged at her and told her it had to be closer to where the seafood joint had been. It had to be. Just with the way they fell and landed perfectly underneath it, her senses told her they were close to the nest. Especially with how fast the large spider seemed like it was coming.

All these thoughts crossed her mind while she mindlessly followed Henry as they walked along Peters Creek, back towards Williamson and towards Happy's once more. The sun had started to set, storm clouds quickly moved in from all around and rain threatened to fall at any moment. The last thing she wanted was to get into her car and be soaked to the bone from the rain. Cynthia picked up her pace and more or less power walked towards their destination. Alas, as hard as they tried to beat the rain, nature had other ideas and let loose as soon as they saw the corner of the large smiling face at the top of the hill.

The two of them sat in her car, dripping from the rain and smelling quite a bit like wet dogs. Cynthia had turned up her air conditioning to the highest setting, something which seemed to upset Henry.

"D-D-Do you alw-w-ways do th-th-this when you're soaked in rain?" he asked through chattering teeth.

"Yup," she stated plainly, "I always found it a lovely cooling sensation, especially after being chased after by a massive hoard of spiders and seeing a bunch of dead and rotting girls." She tried her best to make light of the situation.

Henry sighed and shook his head. "You're not over that, are you?" he asked.

"It's pretty hard to get over something like that," she admitted, "But we all gotta move on one way or another, eh?"

"Yeah, we do," he said, "So, what do you plan on doing after this?"

"Well, to be honest, I have no idea. I'm pretty much all out of ideas as to where to go," she confessed.

"What about in some of the stores down Williamson?" he suggested.

"I don't think so. I think, her chambers are much closer to where we last landed. Something's just telling me that's where we need to start looking."

"But there's nothing around it for quite a while, and there's nothing that looks a place where that many spiders could just congregate and disappear all at once," he reasoned.

"I know, I know, it sounds ridiculous, but I just, I just feel like it's close. Not right there, per se, but close, definitely close." She glanced at the clock and winced a bit when she saw the time change to past midnight. "Hot damn, when did it get so late?"

"Time passes differently on the other side as well. It seems slower than it does here. I can't quite explain it. It's like, the longer you stay on the other side, the slower time runs. I've heard that if you spend a whole day there, about a week passes here."

"Well then, if I go missing for a week, you'll know where I am," Cynthia joked and started to guide her car out of the parking lot. "Where do you live? I'll give you a ride," she offered.

"Well, actually, if you just, you know, drive back to Tinker Creek, I'll just get my car from there," he said with a small, teasing smile.

"Oh, right," Cynthia let out a small, sheepish laugh before taking him to his destination.

~~~

"Well, this is where we part ways for now, milady," Henry said, getting out of her car and heading towards his own.

"Wait!" she called out after him, "What if I need to see you? Think we can meet up tomorrow and figure stuff out?"

"Hmm... How about we meet up at the Bruster's on Williamson, then?" he suggested. "I've been craving ice cream for a while now."

"Sounds like a plan to me. Meet time?"

"Half past noon," Henry determined.

"I'll see you then!" she said, rolling the window back up and watching him get into his car and leave before she drove herself back home.

~~~

"Was the hike really that good down the creek?" her father asked when she finally arrived at home.

"Yeah, I met a new friend and he showed me around and so we lost track of time for a bit," she said offhandedly and trudged her way to her room.

"Got yourself a package today. It's on your bed," he said after her.

"Thanks dad," she muttered, too tired to really care about anything at the moment save for the idea of a scalding hot shower and then the comfort of her bed.

She didn't even bother to look at who had sent her the package before she stepped into the shower. Her body was screaming to be cleaned and rid of whatever dirt and spider bits she was covered in.

The steaming hot water was a warm welcome against her skin and she felt instantly refreshed as she stood under the stream of hot water. The dirt and slime in between her nails ran down her body as she scrubbed away whatever it was that had clung onto her. Her hair, which felt as if she hadn't washed it in weeks, got an extra long washing that night. She took the time to examine her body for any bruising and found several on her knees, shoulders and thigh from when she ran into things in the dark. There were a few red welts from where she had been bitten, but it didn't seem like there were any extremely serious wounds inflicted upon her. She only hoped Henry had been as lucky as she had been.

By the time she had finished her shower, the water had started to run cold; and the drain could barely keep up with the water which had formed a small pool of murky, muddy water about two inches deep at her feet. By then, her fingers had gotten shriveled from being under the water for so long, so she decided it was a proper time to step out and see what was in the package for her.

She shuffled into her room, toweling her hair dry and stared at the plain brown box sitting on her bed. There was no return address and the handwriting was different from any that she had seen before. It looked as though someone had scratched her name and address out in ink rather than using some an actual writing utensil. "Weird..." she muttered, but thought nothing much of it at all as she opened the package.

Inside, there was an old cassette tape and player. The tape itself was unmarked, and as hard as she looked, there weren't any signs that could tell her what the contents of the tape would be. She sighed and looked around for a free outlet to plug the player into so that she could play the tape.

The first half minute or so was complete silence, and Cynthia almost passed it off as a prank from one of her friends until she heard the tell tale scuttle of something not human. After a brief moment of skittering about, it seemed as though whatever it was settled itself and began to speak. The voice that came from it was low, sultry and cloyingly sweet. If she hadn't known better, she would have thought that the mother spider which had died years ago had left the message.

Instead, what was said made it quite clear who it was.

"Why hello there, earth child. Don't think for a second I don't know who you are and where you're going. I have spies everywhere you know, heh, heh. I'm sure you're wondering who I am. It's quite simple, I'm the current reigning spider queen, Getrude. You may call me your highness. Well, anyways, I'm sure you're very well aware about what you did to one of my mothers and her whole nest of children. To be honest, I'm very upset with how everything ended. Not only did I lose a precious Wolf spider mother, but she lost her prey as well. How shameful is that, hm?" There was a slight pause and the sound of the spider queen sipping something before she continued. "Now, allow me to propose something to you. You find me, in the next twenty-four hours, and any live hostages that I have now I'll let go in exchange for your own life, of course. None of them really quite matter to me now that I've found you." The queen let out a soft laugh and murmured something to someone or something that the recording didn't quite pick up. "Now I'm sure you're wondering where I am, right? I can't tell you outright. That'd be too easy for you, so I'll let someone else tell you where you can find me...."

There was the sound of the recording device being shifted and being held up towards someone else who's breathing was slow and heavy.

When he spoke, Cynthia felt her breath catch. There was no mistaking who it was. Though she hadn't heard it in over a decade, there was no mistaking that tone, that youthfulness, that command that it had. Cynthia felt tears well up into her eyes when she realized who it was.

"On the intersection of two major streets," the new voice began, "Follow the dotted lines to where they should meet. Pray to the gods for your safe passage and there, you will meet... there you will meet..." The voice coughed and was unable to continue speaking.

"There now, little prince. I think that's quite enough," Gertrude said, taking over the recording again. "Now, if you want your precious little forest prince back, I'm sure you'll find a way to me, if you dare, earth child," she chuckled and with a click, the recording ended.

Cynthia sat on her bed, tears pouring down her face. She didn't bother to wipe the tears away, she didn't want to wipe them away. She had never realized she was the cause of so much pain in not only her world but on the other side too. She needed to fix things and return them to the way they were before. There had to be a way. There simply had to be. Tate had gone away to find the queen himself in order to stop her before anyone else could be harmed. It was the only reasonable conclusion she could come to. There wasn't any other reason for the forest prince himself to be caught by her.

She sat in silence, thinking and putting pieces together one at a time. She played the recording at least three times over, each time, rewinding and listening to the hints Tate had given her.

"Intersection of two major streets...." she muttered, "Gods, that could be anywhere..." She was stumped at where it could be and thought hard of all the intersections she knew of. "Williamson and Orange.... Hershberger and Williamson... Williamson and... where else.. where else... maybe Plantation? Maybe..." The list of street names cycled through her head as she felt a wave of drowsiness wash over her, and she laid down in bed. "Maybe Henry'll be able to figure something out from there... I'm too tired to think right now..." she mumbled before turning over and trying to go to sleep.

The only problem was, sleep was eluding her that night. No matter how she tossed and turned, she couldn't find a comfortable position; and when she thought she did and finally closed her eyes, she was greeted by the wiggling stone eyes of the creature of the creek bed which turned into the missing eyes of the children hanging from the ceiling. Time and time again, she woke up from those images and found it harder and harder to fall asleep. The words of the spider queen echoed in her head as well, her proposal sounded too good too be true.

Then, there was the sound of Tate's voice in that recording. More than anything, his raspy, tired voice was enough to give her nightmares. She had disobeyed him, it should be her in his position, not the other way around. It was all her fault. All those negative thoughts ran through her mind as she tried to sleep but couldn't. It wasn't until she realized what she was missing did she find some peace.

Picking up her soiled pants, she plucked the stone in her pocket and cradled it gently. It was still warm and glowed softly in her palm. "Don't worry, friend. We'll find him and we'll save him, promise," she whispered to Luce, clutching the stone tightly and finally finding some sleep through the tumultuous thoughts around her.