Page 136 of Mazywood

Sharise yanked the rifle up higher, swinging it so recklessly that Imani thought her sister would shoot her instead of the Beast.

“Where is it?” Sharise screamed, half sobbing.

A chilling sound rose behind Imani’s ear, like a giant, scolding squirrel. Chittering. Loud.

Given more time, Imani would have told her sister that the Beast had camouflaged itself in the snowdrifts propped against the boulders. She had skidded her snowboard to a stop directly in front of it—the shaggy pile closest to her was more Beast than snow—and it had observed her in silence. She had just made her worst mistake of the day. Of her life.

With a yell, Imani turned with her ski pole raised high, ready to spear anything that moved behind her. Then snow sprayed everywhere, her ski pole yanked itself free, and Imani’s thoughts melted into a wall of white. Terrifying winglike flaps flicked open in a blur, impossibly wide, impossibly fast. Imani’s scream tore at her throat, bouncing across the cliffside.

The rifle fired, but it was a sound from a dream. A memory of another existence.

The Beast swallowed Imani inside of its tight flaps, snapping them shut, blotting out sound and most of the light. She saw connecting rivers of blue veins on pale pink flesh exposed beneath thinner clumps of white fur, but little else. Her face was encased in fur that tickled her nostrils and scratched her tightly pinned lips. The confinement of her face triggered Imani’s fear of asphyxiation, and she writhed until she could breathe in gasps free of sour-tasting fur.

Then she was bouncing, flung up and down, back and forth, like riding a bronco. The Beast was racing away with her inside of it! She must have started to curl herself into a ball before the Beast took her because she was frozen in that pose now, arms and legs pinned while the movement jounced her. When her teeth clacked together after a jolt, she bit her tongue hard.

Her tongue flared with pain, but nowhere else hurt. No bites. No crushing weight. Imani realized that the folded wings created a pouch that blunted sharp edges and impact that might harm her as the Beast barreled on its twisty path. It was carrying Imani the way a mother would carry a child, swaddling her in its demonic flaps.

This was how it had carried Mom away from the car! This was how Mom had survived her journey from the lodge. Imani’s thoughts tumbled, hard to snatch and hold, but unlikely relief coursed through her. This pouch felt warm from the Beast’s body heat, blocking out the cold. The air she sucked in to breathe felt thin and hot. Buried in the musk of this odd animal, Imani thought she smelled remnants of the perfume Mom had been wearing last night, borrowed from Mazelle Washington’s vanity table.

I’m not going to die, Imani thought. Mom isn’t dead.

Her screams turned to wild laughter. And then back to screams.

She tried to collect herself the way she did on the Crazy Coaster at the L.A. County Fair, beating back her panic when a ride spun too fast or swept her up too high: This will be over soon. Either she would run out of oxygen or the Beast would take her to its nest. One or the other.

The jittering movement felt like climbing for a while, then the Beast changed direction, heading downward, tipping her upside down. But its embrace was so tight that Imani’s position didn’t shift, aside from her sloshing brain creating waves of dizziness.

Imani’s stomach lurched. She was sure she would throw up. That smell was in here too, she realized; Mom must have vomited from the jostling. Or her fright.

Don’t throw up. Don’t throw up. Don’t throw up. Remembering how much she hated throwing up helped moor Imani to herself again, apart from this impossible swaddling within this creature that should not exist.

As if she’d spoken an incantation, the wild motion finally stopped. The creature was sliding on solid ground in the familiar motion that had created the tracks she had been following all morning, skating a bit this way and then that way in a creeping motion forward. Imani realized that its entire weight must be resting upon her if she was hugged to its belly, but she didn’t feel the weight at all. She didn’t feel any movement from legs beneath her.

It was practically levitating! No wonder it sometimes barely left ruts in its wake.

“It’s magic,” Imani whispered to herself in her cocoon. This was the simple answer to every question racing in her mind.

She had never experienced magic beyond birthday party card tricks and illusions. But now that she was wrapped inside this being she could not explain any other way, she recognized magic on sight. Fright gave way to wonder as every aspect of this creature fascinated her. Its pale flesh. Its spiky fur that could also lie down as flat as a wet sea otter’s. Its tight clasp within winglike flaps that didn’t look big enough to sustain flight.

Where on earth was this animal from? Or… maybe it wasn’t from earth. The possibilities multiplied exponentially. Still, Imani’s curiosity burned greater than her fear. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to want to hurt her, whether it was from not squeezing her hard enough to crush her or protecting her from the terrain. That was the most important thing.

The Beast’s movement was slowing, so Imani called, “Let me out!”

Why not? If it were magical, or an alien, maybe it could understand her. She couldn’t make assumptions anymore. This day had taught her how little she knew about anything.

Whether it was coincidence or not, the being stopped its forward motion and rolled over slightly, unfurling its flaps. The embrace loosened. She was free!

Imani was unsteady, but she found her bearings enough to distinguish up from down and crawl quickly from this womb into the soupy dark. Vague, gray light was visible from around a hidden bend, where she guessed the cavern’s entrance might be. The light illuminated a shadowy cavern wall, but nothing else. She couldn’t even see the thing near her.

But she knew it was still there. She could smell it. It made a sound like a buzzy whimper, as if its voice box were broken.

“Keep away from me!” she said.

In the dark, she couldn’t keep proper distance from it or see if it was lunging at her with those terrible teeth bared. Imani patted her shoulders, relieved to feel the straps from her backpack. She hadn’t dropped it! Her fingers trembling with adrenaline—part leftover terror, but mostly excitement—she wriggled out of her backpack and unzipped the main compartment to feel for her stubby, L-shaped flashlight that could light up her whole backyard at night.

When the light clicked on, Imani gasped.

Bones.