The Society of Imaginary Friends

The next day, Valerie woke up early after dreaming that Sanguina had found Thai and sent Venu to kill him. Her dream made her all the more anxious to create the charm to protect Thai as soon as possible.

When Cyrus and Dulcea met Valerie in front of the dorm the next morning, their moods were much different from hers. They were both excited for the trip, and they talked and joked as they walked into the forest toward the caves. But she couldn’t join in, unable to shake the sense of urgency and danger that had gripped her last night when she visited Thai.

Venu and Sanguina were acting more openly, attacking a stranger on the street. Had Venu had targeted that woman, or had she been in the wrong place at the wrong time? Either way, he was getting bolder, and if he discovered that Thai was trailing him, Valerie knew that he wouldn’t hesitate to attack with full force. She shivered, remembering how pale Chisisi had been, lying in the hospital after the attack. With a little more poison, who knew what would happen to Thai.

She was abruptly distracted from her thoughts by the sight of a glinting waterfall in the distance. The water rushed over white rocks and sent up a spray that caught the light, creating dozens of little rainbows. She veered away from her companions, drawn toward the waterfall with a powerful sense of urgency that she didn’t understand.

“Hey, where are ya going?” Cyrus called.

Several yards away, Valerie stopped. A screen of vines hanging thickly from the surrounding trees blocked her path like a curtain. When she pulled the vines aside, the sight behind them made her breath catch in her throat. Spreading out before her was a spectacular garden. Four white marble tiers were stacked on top of each other, each containing thousands of flowers in brilliant shades of purple and gold, creating a cascade of petals that seemed to be flowing all the way down to her feet. Elegant waterfalls gracefully flowed down the marble tiers, adding to the sensation of movement within the garden.

The strangest feeling came over her, as though this place belonged to her, even though she’d never seen it before. Valerie heard Dulcea’s and Cyrus’s steps as they came closer to see what she was looking at. Dulcea gasped.

“What is this place?” Cyrus asked.

“You don’t know?” Valerie asked, surprised, as she stepped into the wonderland with her friends behind her. Inside, the garden was still, like she’d entered a church. There was something almost holy about its intense beauty.

“I think you found Babylon, Valerie,” Dulcea said.

“I thought that was a story,” Cyrus said, confused.

Dulcea shook her head. “This was a really popular vacation spot a couple decades ago. Conjurors traveled from all over the world to rest here for a few days and take in the beauty. And then one day, it vanished, as if it had been wiped off the map. No one knew exactly what happened, but it would take a very powerful Conjuror to seal off this garden from the rest of the world.”

“Why did we find it now?” Cyrus mused.

Valerie noticed that between the flowers, a set of stairs wound their way up to the top tier. Despite the urgency of her mission, she had to see where they led. She quickly ascended the steps, and the sight when she reached the top made the detour worth it. An enormous waterfall rushed down into a pool surrounded by trees with leaves in every color imaginable. The leaves were reflected in the pool, turning the water into a liquid mix of colors.

Valerie heard Cyrus shout, and then he came running past her and cannonballed into the water below. Seconds later, he bobbed to the surface, laughing. “It’s warm, like bathwater! You guys have to jump in!”

“You don’t have to ask me twice!” Dulcea said, following him into the water with a splash.

“I guess you’ve found your inner child,” Valerie laughed.

“Come on, Val!”

“I can’t swim,” she said. But then she spotted a small dirt path that wound down the side of the waterfall to the bottom, and she hurried down it. When she was almost at the bottom, she saw that behind the rushing waterfall was a small cavern. Carefully, she inched closer, and slid past the waterfall without falling in, getting thoroughly drenched with spray in the process.

Inside, the cavern was dim, the only light coming through the pounding water that rushed past. At first, she thought it was empty, but then she noticed someone standing at the back. Her heart pounded.

“Hi, I’m Valerie. Sorry to bother you.”

The person didn’t move a muscle. She stepped closer. It wasn’t a person, but a statue of a female warrior, who was about to draw her sword from the sheath that hung at her side. Coming closer, Valerie noticed that the sheath was empty, and the woman’s hand was closing around air. Had the statue’s sword been stolen? The woman’s face had a fierce expression, her eyes narrowed and her body tense, ready to fight.

Why would someone put such an intricate statue behind a waterfall where no one would see it? She touched the statue’s hand, and she was reminded of when she had touched the face at Stonehenge and the Sphinx’s paw. Did this statue guard a secret, too?

“Valerie, where are you?” Dulcea called, worry in her voice.

She hurried out from behind the waterfall. In the bright sunshine, she recalled her goal for the day, and was ashamed of being so distracted from her quest. Every day that went by was another chance for Sanguina to find Thai and tell Venu where he was. Or worse, Sanguina could create a charm of her own and she would never see Thai again.

“Hey, guys, we should go find the caves. Didn’t you say it could take days to find the right kind of crystal, Cyrus?”

“Yeah,” Cyrus said, reluctantly getting out of the water and wringing out his clothes. “But when we come back here, I’m teaching you to swim.”

It was only after they were tramping through the woods that Valerie thought of the statue behind the waterfall. But neither Cyrus nor Dulcea had heard anything about any statues or art in Babylon. Something about the woman tugged at her mind, and she promised herself that after this was all over, she would go back and discover what secrets the statue guarded.

When they reached the caves, tucked inside of a rocky hill, Cyrus and Dulcea explained what kind of crystal they needed to make the charm. It had to be at least the size of a walnut, and perfectly clear, without a single speck or deformity that could twist the spell to make it do something that it shouldn’t.

Inside, the caves were dark and damp. Valerie had imagined that they would be beautiful, covered wall to wall with glittering crystals, but instead, they were eerie inside, the crystals sending light slanting in strange ways, sometimes blinding her. The work was tedious. They had to gently wipe away a layer of muck on top of each crystal to see if it was promising. If it seemed to be clear from deformities, they gently pried it free with their fingers and took it outside to examine it more closely.

After hours of searching, they still hadn’t found any perfect crystals, and they decided to split up, each taking a different cave. The caves were close enough that they could call to each other if they ran into trouble.

Valerie worked quickly and methodically in the mouth of the caves. The repetitive nature of the task allowed her mind to finally relax for the first time since she had heard her prophecy from Pythia. Without realizing why, she wandered out of the cave into the woods. At first, she didn’t think about where she was going, but after she had walked for several minutes, a part of her mind pestered her, questioning where she was going and insisting that she shouldn’t leave without telling Dulcea and Cyrus.

She knew she had to turn back, but somehow she couldn’t make her body obey her directions. It was as if someone had seized control of her mind and was forcing her body to do things that she didn’t want it to. Panic rose inside of her as she struggled to regain control of herself. Her breathing became rapid, and she started to shake. Something was very wrong.

Her feet led her farther and farther away from her friends, and she worried that they would never find her now. Finally, her body slowed down, stopping at the entrance to a crystal cave much like the one she had left. Dread made her stomach sink, and she struggled with all of her mental might to stop herself from entering the cave. But it was a fight she lost, as her body entered the shadowy cave against her will. As she waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, she fell to her knees.

“You were warned what would happen if you came here,” Sanguina said, advancing closer and glaring down at Valerie, her face filled with contempt. “You dared to suggest when we last met that I was afraid of you. But I could never fear someone so pathetic and weak. You can’t even protect yourself, much less your friends.”

Anger flared up in Valerie, giving her a burst of energy that enabled her to break free of the mental restraint that had stopped her from controlling her own body and stand before her tormentor. “You’re wrong!” she shouted, surprising Sanguina by hitting her squarely in the knees with a sweep kick, sending her crashing to the ground.

But Sanguina moved even faster than Gideon, and before Valerie could make another move, she attacked, her punches and kicks coming so rapidly that Valerie couldn’t stop some of her blows from coming into painful contact with her neck, arm, and finally her stomach, knocking the wind out of her.

It was different from any fight that Valerie had ever had—even though she was using her power to its fullest, she was hopelessly out of her league. Sanguina was stronger and faster, and she couldn’t even defend herself, much less go on the offense. No sooner had Valerie realized this than Sanguina grabbed hold of her mind and she was unable to control her body again. Sanguina forced her to fall to her knees.

“Really? That’s all there is to your magic?” Sanguina sneered. “I will make you crawl, grovel, and beg for me to end your life.” Sanguina smacked Valerie across the face so hard that her ears rang and blood trickled out of the corner of her mouth. She didn’t even have enough power over her own body to wipe the blood away.

The horror that she experienced was beyond anything that she had ever known before. She was broken inside, completely at Sanguina’s mercy. She had failed them all—Henry, Thai, Cyrus, Azra. She was no match for Sanguina. How could she have ever wanted to fight her? Somewhere deep inside, hadn’t she known that defeat was inevitable? She was nobody, just a little girl that no one wanted, and for good reason. She brought nothing to those she loved except misery.

“Never. Cross. Me.” After each word, Sanguina hit Valerie across the face again and again. The last of Valerie’s mental defenses crumbled, and her hold on her consciousness started to slip. She yearned for the oblivion that passing out would bring.

But before she succumbed, the cave filled with a bright light that reflected off of all the crystals. Through her blurry eyes, Valerie saw Sanguina’s shriveled lips open wide as she shrieked and retreated into the dark depths of the cave.

“Val, are you okay?” Cyrus asked, his voice seeming very far away.

“Grab her and let’s get out of here!” Dulcea said, and Valerie was lifted into Cyrus’s arms before she gave in to the blackness tugging on her mind.