While the monster flailed in fury, Rafe escaped out the window and down the tree.
He landed on the ground, and Jeremy hauled him to his feet. They ran even as Mary Cox’s old rose vines grabbed at them, stabbing their legs with vicious thorns.
They ran as fast as they could over streets that made no sense anymore. The bricks crumbled to dust even as they raced across them. Ahead, Rafe saw a river that shouldn’t have been there, a black and raging river wide as a two-lane highway. A rope bridge spanned it, and across the river, he saw a dirt road. That must be it, the way they were supposed to go.
Jeremy went across the bridge before Rafe could stop him. He made it easily, but Rafe didn’t trust it.
Carefully, he started across the swaying bridge. He told himself not to look down, but he did and saw Jeremy in the water, flailing and fighting the current, an arrow sticking out of his back.
“Rafe!” the Jeremy in the water screamed. “Help!”
“Come on, Rafe, I’m here,” Jeremy called out to him from the bank on the other side of the bridge. “Don’t fall for it like I did. I’m right here.”
But what if he wasn’t? What if that was the fake Jeremy on the other side of the bridge and the real one was in the water begging for his help?
Jeremy on the bank started back across the bridge, but a board broke under his boot.
“Stop!” Rafe called to him. “You said water kills Bright Boys.”
Jeremy in the river reached up his hand.
“Rafe, it’s not real water, remember?” Jeremy said from the end of the bridge. “It wasn’t a real dog or a real house, and it’s not real water.”
He wanted to believe that, but what if he was wrong? There had been a brief moment when he and Jeremy were separated when he stayed in the bedroom to fight the thing behind the door. What if—
He remembered something.
“How do you sing ‘Country Roads’?” Rafe called out to the Jeremy on the other side of the bridge.
The Jeremy in the river called back, “What?”
“The real Jeremy Cox has his own version of ‘Country Roads.’ How does it go?” Rafe called out. The real Jeremy knew every word to John Denver’s “Country Roads,” West Virginia’s state song. Knew it and had his own special version of it.
“Rafe! I’m falling!” The River Jeremy clung to a rock in the water, holding out his hand. Rafe could reach it if he lay down on the boards and stretched out—
“It’s not ‘Growing like a breeze,’ ” Rafe said. “It’s—”
The Jeremy on the bridge called out to him, “ ‘Blow me like a breeze!’ ”
Rafe ran the rest of the way across the bridge and looked back in time to see the River Jeremy sink into the water, which wasn’t water at all but an evil-looking black oil.
Jeremy grabbed him as he panted to catch his breath.
“That was brilliant,” Jeremy said.
“I always liked your version of the song better,” Rafe said. “Come on. Let’s go.”
Sword and bow at the ready, they walked fast along the path that ran parallel to the river. Even though they knew not to be fooled, the river continued to taunt them with bodies in the water and cries of the drowning.
“What is this horrible place?” Rafe said under his breath.
“Skya said it was the place lost souls passed through. A place between…”
“Between what? Heaven and Hell?”
“Between your last breath and your last chance.”
An ax flew past them and the blade struck a tree. Sap, thick and red as blood and smelling of copper, poured from the trunk like an open wound.
Rafe wanted to run but was frozen in place. A Bright Boy stood ten feet away dressed in ragged graveclothes and smelling of dead things. He strode to the tree and pulled the ax from the trunk. The blade glistened brown and wet.
“Good move, Prince. Smart. You’re very smart,” he said. “That trick won’t work next time, though.”
“What do you want?” Rafe demanded.
“What does Chopper want?” the thing asked as he circled them, moving closer like a shark in the water. “Chopper wants you two to hurry up. That’s all. Chop-chop.” He took his ax off his shoulder and started to swing it.
Jeremy shoved Rafe out of the way as they ducked, but by the time the ax blew over their heads, Chopper had disappeared.
—
Rafe lay on his back on the scarred ground. Jeremy hovered over him.
“You all right?” Jeremy asked, looking around, assessing the danger.
“You’re fast.”
“Tempest is a good trainer in the knightly arts of keeping your prince alive.” Jeremy grabbed Rafe’s hand and yanked him off the ground.
