When I smelled menthol and strawberries, I stopped typing and pulled out my prepared totem—a lemon zester—and I recited the spell before Craig could fill the gap in my choices with a homunculus diary:
Dear Rhonda: I recently developed an appreciation for yodeling and signed up for classes to learn. When my husband found out, he insisted on coming with me so we could learn to yodel together. But I told him yodeling was my thing and he couldn’t come, which made him very offended. It’s been two months since then and I haven’t gone to one class yet because he is still sensitive about the subject and I am afraid of causing a rift in our marriage. Am I being selfish for wanting yodeling all to myself?
Help me Rhonda.
—Desperately Seeking Lederhosen
I held up the Homunculus Totem and said, “This lemon zester made a large tunnel for this part of this road.”
Yellow rekulak bile devoured the lemon zester from my hand as more bile swarmed on the face of the mudslide, then dissipated, leaving a large tunnel through the heap of mud and rock and trees. I could see the road on the other side. I heard gasps from the mummers behind me. Em/Suzanne said, “Whoa.”
I jammed the gearshift into drive and stomped the gas pedal. If Lonnie was to be believed, the destruction wrought from rekulak spells was permanent, because of the arrow of time, but the creation wrought from the spells was temporary. But how temporary? Lonnie had said seconds, but he hadn’t specified how many. There were four buses and a truck in our convoy.
We drove into the dark tunnel. There was no concrete or anything visible between us and the slide. The mud was smooth, as if behind glass. Whatever homunculus structure that held it out was invisible to the naked eye.
I counted twelve seconds before we hit daylight and were clear, rain once again hammering on the metal roof. The mummers cheered and clapped. I took a deep breath and brought the bus to a safe stop two hundred yards from the tunnel. The other buses were right behind us. I turned to Kaliah. Her face was pale, tight. Her brother was sacrificing himself so we could go on. She didn’t know what the Friends would do to him. She didn’t know if she’d ever see him again. I went to her, put a hand on her shoulder. She grabbed it and lowered her head.
A horn blared, and I looked up to see headlights in the tunnel. “Something’s wrong,” I said. “They’re coming through.” I watched the tunnel in horror, expecting it to collapse. What was Hugo thinking? They’re going to be crushed.
But the tunnel kept its shape, and the truck came barreling out on our side. This time I cheered, along with Kaliah. But then I saw a green glow on top of the slide. A Zaditorian was bounding over it toward us. Somehow it had slipped by the barbershop squad.
Rhonaya came around the back of the truck—now stopped—and pointed her radar gun at the advancing Zaditorian. Its bubbles collapsed, and its momentum sent its now entirely human body flying into the street and sliding to a stop by the bus behind us.
Rhonaya turned away and pointed the radar gun back at the tunnel, where the rest of the Zaditorians were, clustered just inside, clamoring over and around each other with their spindly and freakish bodies, trying to escape, reforming bubbles almost as fast as Rhonaya popped them.
Something was off about the barbershop squad’s singing. It was quieter, less dynamic. I realized more singers had lost their voices.
Hugo backed the truck closer to the tunnel, and the Zaditorians backed further inside.
“Collapse!” I said as if I could make it happen with my words. What was taking so long? Collapse!
The bus door slapped open, and I turned in time to see Em/Suzanne stepping out. I called after her, but she ran toward the fight. A few mummers were right behind her, others were already standing, lining up in the aisle, and filing through the door. I wedged between two bodies, pushed my way outside, and sprinted to catch up with Em/Suzanne, shouldering mummers out of my way. She was heading straight for the Zaditorian that had climbed over the slide.
He stood now, scraped bloody—my old friend Beardo. Bubbles formed all over his body in a variety of colors. Nightmarish body parts sprouted from the bubbles: a hairy leg thicker than a tree trunk, a tentacle with spiked feathers, a car-sized torso oozing a viscous substance with corral-like rocks tearing through the skin along the spine, a head that looked like a neon shrub with a beak, a head with a spear-length proboscis and a forehead piled high with orange eyes like salmon roe, a head that was a gigantic, wrinkled blue worm with a mouth like a monstrous sea anemone.
An arm with red, flaking skin and dozens of purple vines for fingers swung toward Em/Suzanne. The vines wrapped around her waist and lifted. She screamed. I was ten yards away. She was a foot above the ground when Zelda darted past me, leapt through the air, bit the arm, and latched on, her body hanging as she shook and tugged. The vines let go of Em/Suzanne, and the arm whipped sideways, sending Zelda hurtling over a bus toward the cliff.
“No!” I cried. Then my feet flew out from under me, and my shoulder slammed into the road. A mummer had been thrown at me and was under my legs, hurt. I stood and ran to Em/Suzanne. Mummers were charging the beast only to be tossed back
