“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” said Robert in between breathing.
He veered off the path and headed toward trees that led to the East, or was it West?
“East, I think,” said the voice in Robert’s head.
“Thanks,” said Robert.
He glanced back again and wished he hadn’t. The wolf was gaining ground.
“You should look for a door,” said the voice.
“A door. Right. But won’t that take me to Othaside?”
“Well, there are no werewolves there, are there?”
“Excellent point.”
He reached the trees and looked back to see the werewolf skid to a halt fifty feet behind him. She was snarling.
“Lily, are you still in there?” shouted Robert with as little futility as possible.
The creature’s eyes shone in the moonlight and she stood up on her hind legs.
“Shit,” said Robert and fought to keep control of his bodily functions.
“Shit,” agreed the voice.
The werewolf was at least seven feet tall, with dark hair and long, sharp-looking claws. Her knees were inverted, like a wolf’s, and she sniffed the air.
“Lily, it’s me, Robert. Remember?”
The wolf threw its head back and let out a long howl that was answered by a deeper howl coming from the direction of the castle. It occurred to Robert that the Historian must have been stalling, knowing the moon was coming. He felt a pang of sorrow for what the old man had done to Lily, but the thought was fleeting as the wolf dropped to all fours and charged at Robert who turned and ran into the trees.
The forest was dense, which Robert hoped would slow down the large creature. That small glimmer of hope was smashed into tiny pieces, burned, drowned, hung, drawn, quartered, and laid to rest in a quaint little area of Robert’s mind as, seconds later, the sound of trees being literally pushed over could distinctly be heard behind him.
“A door, need a door, looking for a door,” he panted.
Robert tripped on some sort of spiky shrubbery and tumbled out of the trees into a tiny clearing. And all was silent. This was not comforting. The sound of crashing trees had at least been a small reassurance that danger was behind him somewhere. He scrambled to his feet and listened intently to the silence. Moonlight shone through the treetops. He reached into his shirt and pulled out the vial of blood. Now seemed a good time to use the White Rabbit’s gift to have a door take him anywhere he wished. He was almost certain that anywhere he wished would be better than here, or at least would offer the opportunity of not being torn to pieces. And then he heard it. Breathing. The sort of deep, heavy breathing often heard on the other end of creepy phone calls. And then he felt it. Warm drool dripped onto his face and down his left cheek. If his entire being wasn’t overtaken by sheer unadulterated fear, Robert would have been disgusted that he was being drooled on. He didn’t want to look up, but he’d long since lost control of what his body should or shouldn’t be doing.
He looked up.
The werewolf was clinging to a tree, thirty feet off the ground, staring down at Robert.
“Nice doggy,” was all Robert could think to say.
The werewolf dropped to the ground in front of Robert with the agile grace of a prima ballerina. Robert tried to picture the werewolf in a tutu. It didn’t look funny.
The werewolf opened its mouth to reveal the kind of teeth no human ever wanted to be within fifty feet of without a good, sturdy, electric fence. The creature roared in Robert’s face… or at least it would have, if Robert’s face had still been there. Robert was already weaving through the trees with the grace and dexterity of a drunken spider monkey. The werewolf leaped into the trees, and Robert looked back just as she crashed down behind him and swiped out with one clawed hand.
Robert felt the cold tingly feeling of something slicing into his flesh and he pitched forward, felt a yank on his neck, and rolled to a stop. He looked up to see the werewolf looking down at him, something shiny hung from a bloody right claw. The vial of blood: Robert’s passport. He could feel warmth spilling slowly onto his back and watched as the giant creature sniffed at the air.
“There!” screamed the voice in Robert’s head.
Inexplicably, without any sort of reference other than there, Robert knew to look to his right and saw exactly what the voice was talking about. A distortion in space, a tear in the fabric of reality. A door.
Robert dived between the two trees to his right and could feel the werewolf’s breath on his neck. He stood before the door and hesitated.
“What are you doing?” said the voice.
“I don’t know where it’ll take me.”
“You can either go or stay but one of the options has your flesh being ripped from your bones. Just saying.”
The doorway shrank to half the size.
Robert jumped headfirst through the doorway as the werewolf pushed itself through the trees with a crash. The world around him slid into a swirly sort of mass and for a moment, Robert thought he’d passed out. To his dismay, he found that he was wrong.
Rumpelstiltskin left the City of Oz as night fell and shadows overtook the city wall. He had the information he needed and now all he had to do was find a door to take him to Othaside. It took a lot of self-control not to bolt from the city, but with the City Guards patrolling the streets and the Agency on his tail, it made more sense to lay low and leave once it was dark.
The Dwarf followed the coastline to the West, hoping to avoid any foot traffic, as the coastline was treacherous at the best of times. Strong winds were always a hazard to those taking the coastline path; there was always the risk of being blown off the two-hundred-foot high cliffs that plummeted toward the ocean. The high cliffs ran from the City of Oz all the way to the borders of Munchkinland.
Two hours out of the city, Rumpelstiltskin found a door but was severely disappointed at its location. The door was situated floating in the air around six feet away from the cliff’s edge, over the thrashing ocean. The moonlight illuminated the doorway nicely, and although ninety-nine percent of doors appeared close to the ground, there was always the tricky and rebellious one percent that chose to appear wherever the hell they wanted to.
The evil Dwarf stood with his hands on his hips, contemplating the distance to the door and whether he should just keep looking and find one that wasn’t suspended two hundred feet above the thrashing ocean and sharp jagged rocks.
No, he’d already wasted enough time. This was it. He turned and walked ten feet away from the cliff edge, then turned back, braced himself, prepared to run, and then decided he should back up some more. This was it, one final piece and then he’d be able to finish what he started. He ran. It wasn’t really as fast as he’d hoped. He tried moving faster; panic began to set in as he approached the edge. He changed his mind exactly 0.457 seconds too late and tried to skid to a stop. Failing miserably, he tripped over a rock and propelled off the edge of the cliff, through the air, and straight through the door.
As it turned out, Robert and Rumpelstiltskin were passing through doors at the exact same time in two completely different places. In the nether regions of the ethereal doors’ transit system, they actually passed right by each other but never noticed. When someone experienced a feeling akin to their insides being rearranged and the concepts of up and down have vacated one’s existence, it’s often surprising how much people fail to notice.