Page 60 of Outcast Fae
They were such lies.Bullshitlike Daniella kept saying, except she needed to be quiet. Now, I understood why Vaughn hadn’t wanted me to ask questions. Everyone here was dangerous.
“Why are there rules like that on this island, huh?” Daniella said, her anger not assuaged one bit. “Why bring us to a place where we can get killed just by walking in the wrong direction? You see? It’s all bullshit! You don’t want to help us. You want an excuse to get rid of us.”
That was what Vaughn had said. I glanced at him, but he was watching Silver Bear.
Silver Bear growled low in his chest. Vaughn’s neck muscles twitched in kind. If we weren’t careful, it would be an all-out brawl, and I had a feeling it wouldn’t go our way.
“This isn’t working,” I said to Meadow Song.
Her focus bounced from Vaughn and Silver Bear to me. “What?”
“I said it isn’t working,” I repeated in an effort to defuse the tension, to get Daniella to back down. “No one is learning anything right now. That’s what you want, right? For us to learn and grow? Maybe you need to go about it another way.”
I expected her to admonish me, and maybe Silver Bear would direct his anger at me instead of Daniella, which was fine, but, instead, she considered my words. “You’re right. We should try another tactic.”
Surprise tinged my cheeks. I hadn’t expected my words to work.
Meadow Song stood, dusting sand off her loose trousers. “Maybe talking isn’t the way. You all seem to like participating in activities more than group therapy which is fine,” she said, sounding like it was anything but fine. “So, okay.”
At this, she began weaving a spell. We all watched as her fingers twined and stretched, slipping around each other like dancers in a waltz. Finally, she clapped her hands and blew. The ground rumbled in the distance. I grabbed Daniella’s hand, expecting a giant bird or squid to appear and try to kill us. Maybe my words weren’t helpful at all.
Meadow Song smiled as if satisfied. “There. I’ve built you an obstacle course with two tracks, one for each group. Whichever one of you completes it first will receive a wonderful meal inside the dome.”
Eyes went wide. Everyone stood, glancing toward where the rumble had been. A meal in the dome? Now that was something.
“Don’t start yet. Here are the rules. You must work as a team. You may not sabotage the other team’s progress. You need to communicate and get along. Got it?”
“Got it,” Elon and a few others said.
No one could take their eyes off the beach in the distance. What kind of obstacle course had Meadow Song created? Did I even need to worry about participating? I’d been dying to get in the dome and look around, but if what Vaughn had said was true, Meadow Song was likely lying. They didn’t want anyone to know what was in there. Despite that, I felt like I needed to compete. After what we’d seen with Wally, obedience could mean the difference between life or death.
“Ready, set, go!” Meadow Song shouted.
We took off running, even Vaughn. Perhaps, he’d reached the same conclusion I had.
Ahead of us, an obstacle course rose in the distance. I could see the whole thing as I flew above the heads of the others. There were platforms standing twelve feet off the sand, several rows of logs, and a giant tower at least three stories tall with another larger platform on top. Two slides exited off the back, pointing toward a glowing red ribbon.
The finish line.
My flight up to see it all had taken some time, however. Sinasre was the first to reach the starting line, this one a glowing blue ribbon that hovered over the ground at the start of the obstacles. Barreling forward, he tried to cross, but a force propelled him back. He staggered and collapsed to the sand, shaking his head.
But, of course, it would bethatkind of obstacle course. What had I gotten us into?
“What is this trickery?” he said, shouting toward the sky. “How can we win if we can’t even enter?”
“You can enter,” Meadow Song’s disembodied voice said. “Just not that way.”
Not that way? What did that mean?
As I flew toward the start, Elon and Vaughn got to the start ribbon, as did Patricia and Chan on the opposing team. Soon, they tried different tactics. Vaughn tried crawling toward the ribbon but was thrown back. Elon tried igniting his hands and zapping the ribbon away but was thrown back as well. For my part, I tried flying over it and was tossed like a leaf on a stiff breeze.
Daniella helped me out of the sand, dusting me off. “What’s going on?”
“We can’t get through,” I said, spitting sand out of my mouth. “It doesn’t make sense.”
Gina and Henry were the last to make it to the line. They were holding hands and watching us all make attempts to cross to no avail. How silly we must look not even able to start the trial before us. Meadow Song must’ve been loving this.
Just as Sinasre was about to try to use a log to vault himself over, Gina and Henry shrugged and walked toward the ribbon still hand in hand.
