“Well, dog, you did a fine job with the bezoar.” the witch said to Bob as she waved her wand over her distracting hairdo and returned to normal size. He wagged his tail and growled in answer. “And you weren't wrong about her readiness, either. She's quite a piece of work, that one.”
She waved her wand again and a doggie door appeared in the parking lot.
“I'll continue to send messages by means of the clock radio when you arrive back.”
Bob barked and wagged some more.
“Right. The Lemurians. I remember. The doggie door will take you to the foot of Mt. Shasta, where they await your arrival. You might try a juice cleanse after today, though.”
Bob jumped through the dog door, disappearing from Texas.
He popped from nowhere in Northern Cali, and looked up to the peak of the mountain.
“Dog. We've awaited your arrival.” A very tall man in a rainbow glow robe stepped forward.”
Bob was well-acquainted with this Lemurian. He rolled over to show his joy and then sat.
“Come now, we'll go into the mountain.”
Lulu opened one eye, hoping that she’d find herself home, and that it all had just been a dream,[62]but what she saw was black. Something was different, though, she realized, sitting up.
In the middle of the room there was a pool filled with some dark liquid above the surface of which arced blue jolts of electro-snapping. Each one sizzled across the surface and disappeared. She looked over at Reggie who was still sleeping, then got up from the chair, which she noticed was now black as well. They had gone to sleep on red chairs. Could someone have moved them while they slept? She didn’t think so.
She went over to the edge of the pool. It was a strange sort of swimming pool. The full moon was reflected on its surface just under the slight glow radiating from within its dark shimmer. Carved into the stone at the edge of the pool were the words, “Full Fathom Five.”[63]
Lulu thought that must be how deep it was, though she had no idea what it meant. Just gazing at the pool made Lulu feel cold and desolate.
Reggie came to stand beside her.
“What do you think it is?” he asked Lulu.
“I don’t know,” she answered, looking up at the black diving board that jutted out over the surface of the sparkling black water and her spine prickled like she was being climbed by a herd of angry cats. She imagined cats running up her back, their claws digging into her flesh and leaving long scratches. There were seven cats in her imagined scenario, all black and she was wearing a lacey white dress. When each cat got to her shoulders it jumped off and climbed her again until she was covered with bloody lines and her dress was tattered and-not-so-white.
“I wonder if it’s warm,” Reggie said, interrupting Lulu's cat-imagining, and before Lulu could stop him, he bent down and put his index finger into the pool. She grabbed at him, but was too late. The moment his finger touched the surface he crumpled forward, plunging headlong beneath the surface and would have gone in completely had Lulu not managed to grab one foot. She held on with all her might, bracing her own feet against the ridge at the edge of the pool. To her horror, some of the foul water surged up and touched the soles of her shoes, but she held fast to her obnoxious sibling who had gone limp. She could barely see his pale arms under the water along with some slithery, silvery shapes that swarmed around him. She hoped they weren’t eating him. Somehow the fear that coursed through her must have given her a surge of strength because as she imagined Reggie’s flesh being stripped from his bloody bones she heaved backward and managed to pull him half out of the atrous water. He choked and sputtered a few times and then lay there, limp and staring.
Strangely, he didn’t yell or complain. He just lay there, his face perfectly blank, his skin tinged slightly dark.
“Reggie,” she was afraid to touch him because he was still soaking wet, “talk to me.”
His mouth moved a bit, but he didn’t say a thing, but just stared, unblinking. Suddenly, an electrical aura of tiny lightning bolts cocooned his body in a yellowish glow, thousands of little arcs snapping around him and he tensed and began to shake all over. His eyes rolled back in his head and his hair stood on end. He shuddered and shimmied for what felt like an eternity, but for what was more likely about a minute before the attack stopped and he fell limp again. Lulu couldn’t believe her eyes. She looked over at the pool where the weird creatures within roiled the surface with their mad thrashing. Steam rose from his body such that he dried completely in seconds.
“Stand up,” she ordered him and was surprised when he did it, keeping the same bland expression. Lulu was perplexed.
“Go sit down,” she told him and he did. This wasn’t like Reggie. “What’s going on?” Lulu asked herself out loud. The weird pool had done something to her brother. Never did Reggie do anything without arguing.
“Stand up,” she said, and Reggie stood. “Sit down,” she said, and he sat.
“Jump up and down and flap your arms while you quack like a duck,” she said, and he did, though his delivery was stiff and un-ducklike. Lulu was beginning to get the picture. “Sit down,” she told him, “and don’t do anything. I’m going to look around.”
Normally, Reggie falling into a state in which he would do anything she said would have made Lulu very happy. If they were home she’d have him eating cat hair pudding, and running down the street in his underwear, and perhaps (if he'd been particularly pesky) peeing his pants in the middle of the playground at recess. She could just imagine the excellent revenges she could get for all the annoying pranks he’d played. Under these circumstances, however, it wasn’t a welcome development.
At least Reggie wasn’t scared any more. She didn’t think, anyway, that he could feel the horror of their current situation in his state. In a way, he was lucky about that. She realized she could just follow his example and drown her fear in that dark water, but she had no intention of giving up, and that’s what it would be.
She would fight the witch to the end. That witch might be evil and have magical powers, but Lulu was determined to get back to Walla Walla, and to take Reggie with her. At least she was mostly determined to take Reggie with her. She looked at him sitting there all zombie-like and she felt bad about having mean thoughts. Her mom always said it was her responsibility to look out for Reggie, because he was younger, which meant that she should be trying to help him, not thinking bad thoughts. She pictured a pet monkey. She couldn’t help it.
Lulu decided she needed to search for a door again, because if there was any chance to escape before the witch got herself back to normal size and returned, she had to try.
[62]Which is a pointless end to a story, and couldn't happen here.
[63]A fathom is a unit of measurement usually used for depth of water. It can also be a verb meaning ‘to understand.’
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