A Strange Tale Read online

  Inside the Looking Glass Chamber, everything remained as Percival had seen it before. Like the dining hall, it seemed as though it belonged anywhere but here in this dilapidated old house in the middle of the woods. Mr. Lonely crossed to a particular mirror, preparing to enter. Percival looked around the chamber curiously, but had no idea which mirror had deposited him back in his own closet before.

  “Come, come! We’re late already.” Mr. Lonely passed through the looking glass as though going through a pane of water.

  Violet’s eyes lit up. “Wow, that’s so cool.”

  “Go ahead,” Percival offered. “I’ve already tried it before.

  Violet grinned, stepping toward the mirror. She tried to touch her own reflection with a cautious finger, first. “Whoa, it’s cold.”

  Percival hadn’t thought about it earlier, having been so surprised to have come through a mirror. Violet inched her hand then her arm all the way up to her shoulder. She looked back at Percival. “Coming?”

  He nodded as she turned, allowing the rippling surface of the looking glass to swallow her completely. Percival paused only a moment, wondering what exactly they’d gotten themselves into. He whispered a prayer for protection then stepped through the mirror, noticing for the first time that Violet had been right. It was cold.

  FANTASTIQUE

  Emerging on the other side of the looking glass, Percival quickly found both Violet and Mr. Lonely standing upon a grassy hill ahead of him. Contrary to the manor house, here they were bathed in bright sunshine. Puffy white clouds—entirely too white and puffy, perhaps—floated gently through the brilliant blue sky above. “Where are we?” Percival called, making his way toward them.

  A bugle sounded in the valley below. Percival watched as a troop of knights in shining armor upon horseback rallied to the call. Some carried swords aloft while others rode along with red standards flying high in the breeze upon tall staves. “What’s going on?” Percival asked again.

  “We are in the Imaginative World of Fantastique, my boy,” Mr. Lonely said. “Those are some of the king’s knights going to fight some beast or other. They’re always flitting about on a quest for this, or that—pay them no mind.”

  Percival and Violet both looked at him strangely. “Imaginative World? You said that before, but what does it mean?” Percival asked.

  Mr. Lonely sighed. “You are no longer in your world, but in one of ours.”

  “Ours?”

  “I’ll make this brief, Percival, because I don’t have time for more at the moment. You are a being of the real world while I, Mrs. Lonely and all you see are imagined beings. This is one of seven imagined worlds or realms.”

  “Are you kidding me, or—” Percival started, but Mr. Lonely quickly silenced him with an upheld palm. “Please, we don’t have time for this now, Percival. Believe me, I’ll explain everything after the delegates have come and gone from the manor house, but now is not the time. We have to meet Marlon the Wizard.”

  “Marlon the Wizard?” Percival asked.

  “Really, Percival, if you’re going to repeat everything I say then we’re never going to get anywhere.” Mr. Lonely pointed to an ancient castle standing behind them on the hill. Lichen climbed the gray stone walls. A wooden drawbridge descended before them.

  Percival was sure he had not noticed the castle, before when they arrived. He looked at Violet. She only shrugged her shoulders and started following Mr. Lonely up the hill toward the drawbridge. Percival sighed, following after.

  The end of the drawbridge came to rest upon a hewn pad of rock with a loud crack. Up ahead, a cobblestone road led through a darkened archway into the castle itself. Crows cawed above, circling around the tallest parapet. Percival looked up at them. “Why do I have a bad feeling about this?”

  “I thought castles usually had guards,” Violet said, looking around, but finding no one.

  “The castle is well guarded by magic—don’t you worry about that,” Mr. Lonely said. “If we weren’t expected, we would have a terrible time ever getting inside—and there’s no telling what you’d find when you did.”

  Percival scanned the moat below them as they passed over the drawbridge to the other side. Crocodiles snapped at him from twenty feet below in the murky green water. “I didn’t think there was any such thing as magic.”

  “You’ll get over it, I’m sure,” Mr. Lonely said dismissively. “You need to realize where you are, Percival. This is an imagined world. Nearly anything is possible within the confines of each particular realm, though it does depend on what realm you’re in. This is Fantastique. Wizards and magic are commonplace here, where they might not be in other places. Marlon is one of the most powerful of all.”

  “What else do they have in Fantastique, Mr. Lonely?” Violet asked, interested.

  They reached the other side of the bridge and passed on to the cobblestone road. Mr. Lonely pondered the question. “There are dragons, knights, trolls, elves, all sorts of imagined beings like that.”

  Percival thought about it—Fantastique—fantastic—fantasy. “This is a world of pure fantasy, Violet.”

  Mr. Lonely paused for a moment, turning with a grin on his pale face. “Now you are beginning to understand!” Mr. Lonely wagged a knowing finger. “Man creates with his mind, and creatures are born of it…whole worlds in fact.”

  “You say there are seven, altogether?” Violet asked.

  “Seven for the moment, but growing faster than when they first came into being,” Mr. Lonely said, continuing toward the castle entrance. “In the past fifty years, in your world, the imagined worlds have multiplied and expanded…and grown hot with jealousy.”

  Percival caught up to the old man as they passed through the entrance. “Jealousy?”

  “Yes, of one another, and even more of mankind.” Mr. Lonely stopped short, pointing his finger in Percival’s face. “Be sure of this, young man. Given its leave, a creation will usually come to despise its creator. It happened with mankind and that’s what has happened among the inhabitants of the imagined worlds. They want to overthrow humanity—their creators.”

  Percival looked at Violet. “The creation will hate its creator…spooky. The second Psalm says mankind imagines a vain thing…cutting ties with our Creator.”

  Violet looked at Mr. Lonely earnestly. “But can it be stopped—the rebellion, I mean?”

  Anything begun can be stopped. It only requires the right methods.”

  Violet looked at Percival. “And that’s why you need Percival?”

  “Precisely,” Mr. Lonely said. “Who better to manage the Lonely Manor and safeguard your world than someone from your world?”

  Percival’s brow furrowed. “But why me?” He hoped to hear something good, maybe how brave he was, or that he had a pure heart, but the actual answer was far less satisfying.

  “You were the one who came to the house,” Mr. Lonely said then he continued walking into the bowels of Marlon’s Castle.