4 Chapter 3

Calla wasn't sure how long she'd been riding in the back of the apparently magic-proof and brute-force-proof carriage but based on how sore her throat was from angrily screaming and shouting she could guess it'd been for a while. She also wasn't sure what kind of mileage a horse-drawn carriage had or how many miles per hour each horse had to the carriage or the equations that she figured would probably take calculus skills that she also didn't have to figure it all out. So she'd simply taken to trying to stay in her seat as the carriage thundered down the road, somehow catching every bump and attempting to add them to her skull. It really was no wonder why carriages went out of style.

Gripping onto the sides, Calla was relieved when they left the highway and took off on a nonexistent path through some grass. Despite the fact that there was no marked path, the way they were going was a lot gentler of a ride that the unforgiving pavement from the roads. Then again, the roads were pretty bad outside of town. Her nerves were distracting her and she tried to focus her thoughts. Where was she being taken? Why was she being taken, for that matter. She didn't have even the slightest clue as to the answers to either of her questions and could only hope that they'd be answered favorably for her and that the answers had nothing to do with doom or destruction or world ending or life ending. Or anything else bad.

Heck, maybe it was just some long lost super nice cousin with no idea of cars or whatever that just really wanted to have her over for tea and cakes. That would be great and not at all life threatening. She felt she could handle an outcome like that.

That, of course, was not the case. Peeking out of the carriage window, Calla started to recognize the surrounding woods and new questions started to take shape. These reached their peak when they passed through what she could have sworn was that ancient stone arch from the creepy woods and then they were traveling through the winding paths of something that looked eerily like the Garden she and Grandma were supposed to keep.

The path widened and opened in an area she had never noticed or that had perhaps been covered before but had now been revealed. They flew through this opening and nearly half a mile up this path the trees split apart to reveal a huge castle that Calla had never seen before. What had Grandma said about the gate? That's right, don't heckin' go through it, and now look where she was. A mysterious castle that no one had known about, not even her, and Grandma had never made any mention of? Sounded pretty "magic pocket dimension" to Calla. This was getting more and more troublesome.

The carriage stopped in front of the entrance and the door to her carriage swung open. As she'd been leaning against it to see outside, the departure of the door from its latch resulted in the departure of Calla from the carriage and her rather messy greeting with the ruined cobblestone drive. Groaning, she pushed herself up off the ground and turned to look for the driver--weren't they supposed to help ladies out of carriages or whatever?--but he was nowhere to be found.

"I swear, if I get introduced to someone calling themselves 'Count Dracula'... actually would that be cool? I guess it depends if we're talking Stoker Drac or not," Calla mused to herself. She grabbed her bag from the carriage and turned to look at the large staircase leading up to the obscenely large entrance doors. She drew a sigil to ward off evil with her finger in the air and whispered, "evil cannot and will not bring harm to me in any way, so mote it be."

The large doors creaked and groaned, opening. "No need for that, Miss Calla." A tall figure stood in the darkness of the castle. As the doors opened, the figure was illuminated revealing a tall, pale man with bleach blonde hair and a veil of heavy dark cloth, heavily embroidered. "You are my guest--evil will not find you in this castle."

"Guest? Guests aren't tossed into locked carriages and carried away against their will. That's called being kidnapped," Calla protested.

The man coughed nervously and said, "Ah, yes, my apologies.... We are in... desperate need of... your particular abilities." He pulled at the end of the veil, ensuring it continued to cover his face, though the ends brushed against his collarbone. "Come in, come in. I will fill you in on the details."

"Do I have a choice?" Calla asked.

"Yes, but I ask that you hear my story before you decide. I understand the... method of your arrival was probably rather traumatic for you, but please."

He seemed incredibly desperate but this was a strange man hiding his face who had just kidnapped her and was now inviting her into his creepy dark castle in the middle of the woods. It was all just very shady and Calla wasn't sure if she'd be able to get herself out of it should things go wrong. "Can't you just tell me here?"

The man sighed but seemed to understand. "Alright, then how about we converse in my rose garden? In fact, that might be a better place to explain things anyways." He turned and said something to someone behind him and then began to descend the steps.

Calla could not help but step back, a bit surprised. She stepped to the side of the path, keeping a good distance between herself and the strange man as he walked past her, and she realized the carriage had disappeared and could not recall having heard it leave. Magic was definitely at play here, but she wasn't sure how. More questions and not many answers; this was not a game Calla enjoyed playing.

She swung her bag over her shoulder and followed the strange man back to the Garden. She noticed his clothes were dark and matched his veil which seemed kind of absurd to her but the man's attire was absurd overall, making it stand out less. It was as if he had stepped out of a different time or as if time had moved on without him. That or he was just one of those people who were so obsessed with a different time period that they morphed their entire life and wardrobe around it, which she figured she probably shouldn't rule out as a possibility.

"Please tell me you're not a vampire," Calla sighed. Vampires were cool and all but she much preferred the ones in leather with snarky attitudes over the overly dramatic types that have to over-complicate everything and this guy looked very much like he'd be the latter.

"I am no demon, witch," the man snapped.

"Woah, okay, your highness." Definitely the dramatic type.

"So you can see through the curse!" The man wheeled on her. The next thing she knew his hands gripped her shoulders. "Can you break it?"

"Ha-what?" Calla felt like someone had just smacked her with a brick. She ran the man's words through her head a few more times, analyzing. "Is this a joke?"

He huffed and turned away from her, continuing down the path. "I can assure you, my situation is nothing to be joked about."

"Wait, so why are we walking to the garden if you have a carriage?" It seemed like a valid question.

"It's quicker," he answered. Or maybe he'd just forgotten he'd had a carriage? Calla wasn't sure this guy totally knew what he was doing. He seemed a bit like he was fumbling around while trying to still come off as proper or whatever.

After a few more moments of walking, the guy veered off the main path onto another, smaller path that she hadn't noticed before. It led to another arch, smaller than the stone one Calla normally walked around to get to the garden, and the guy walked right through it. She was ashamed to realize she had actually jumped a bit at this. Grandma had so thoroughly ingrained into her not to walk through possible portals that the fact the man had just brazenly jumped through without a moment's hesitation just seemed wrong. She sighed, realizing she was going to have to actively ignore Grandma's 'don't walk under strange arches in the woods' rule unless she wanted to walk the next half mile.

She stepped up to the arch and rested her hand on it, closing her eyes to feel the energy rush through her. It didn't feel negative, just a bit slow from disuse. This was the first time it was being used in a very long time, from what she could tell, but it seemed safe enough so she stepped through.

The magic washed over her and she found herself in a garden. Mr. Pompous, as she'd decided to call him (at least until she learned his name and maybe after), was waiting for her. Weirdly enough, he held out a gloved hand to assist her down the two stairs from the platform the arch stood atop to the path on the ground. Calla raised an eyebrow, suspicious. Wouldn't it have made more sense to guide her through instead of just helping her down after? Maybe he'd just decided to use manners now or maybe he'd simply been giving her a choice to follow him through back there, she wasn't sure.

But she took his hand anyways and allowed him to guide her to a gazebo, in the middle of which was a small pedestal on top of which was an oddly familiar glass dome housing nothing.