I was almost close.

I grunted while taking the last step onto gra.s.s that was continually s.h.i.+fting and waving about like there was a strong wind, but I could feel no such thing.

To my left was a flock of some kind of rainbow-colored birds. Their wings were flapping but they weren't soaring any higher than just barely off the ground.

To my right was an orange waterfall, which was flowing upwards and had orange droplets frozen in the air all around it.

And that wasn't even the end of the bizarre distortions.

"Is this normal?" My mouth gaped open as I finally looked ahead of me to see ma.s.sive flowers, like giant sunflowers but various colors, bobbing back and forward gently. I would have almost said the flora was dancing.

Kit had taken to the sky above my head again. "Not any different than what you would find in the other world."

"Oh yeah, waterfalls flow upstream all the time in the real world." I shook my head and took a few more steps.

Then suddenly, my heart jumped as a piercing screech ran through my ears. One hand shot over my ear and I bent into a few backward steps. The fox and Kit were writhing as well, before the shriek died out.

As my hand came away from my ears, I glanced around, but couldn't find a single soul around besides the ones that came with me.

"What was that?" I gasped while rubbing at the ear I wasn't able to cover.

The last thing I was expecting was a completely different voice crying at me. "You killed Petunia!"

I scanned around but couldn't find the source.

"How dare you! You stupid moving flower!" The voice continued, and my eyebrows lowered as I looked down. Next to the spot where my footprint had smashed down the gra.s.s there were a few a.s.sortments of tiny flowers with faces on them.

I blinked. "You can't be serious..."

"How could I not be serious when it comes to cold-blooded murder?" The rose shrieked from the ground as I stepped closer and bent over.

"But you're a flower."

"So are you, murderer!" The rose spat up at me while Kit landed nearby the larger flowers, gripping the gra.s.s.

"No I'm not. I'm a human."

"There are only flowers here! You are a liar and a murderer!" The rose continued and then started chanting, "Murderer!"

A tulip and a few of the smaller flowers around it started chanting with the rose.

"I'm not a murderer!" I yelled back and wanted to be able to cover both my ears, but the fox was in one of my hands. Instead Kit whipped a tail around and slammed it over the ground where the patch of flowers had been. More high-pitched and low-pitched shrieks occurred, but then it went mostly silent.

"There." The fake dragon concluded after the silence fell. "Annoying flowers."

I couldn't breathe I was so stunned. "You just killed them."

"Yes, and? You killed one too."

"That..." The spirit was right...so were the flowers. "That doesn't mean you kill them too! I did it on accident."

"I've heard that before. I believe they call them excuses." Kit grinned and I didn't even hold back this time as I threw my fist across the spirit's face and actually launched him toward the birds flapping in place.

"It was an accident!" I hollered while watching the dragon's long snaking body land with an unusually soft thump on top of many of the birds. Feathers fluttered out into the air slowly but mostly froze in place.

My rage was soothed, but not completely. I stepped closer with one foot, before discovering a vine had wrapped around my other leg and kept me from moving any further. I glanced back and followed the vine to the large flowers, which were looking at me with wide eyes.

I dropped the fox as my body hit the floor and I was dragged across the dancing gra.s.s then flung in the air to hang from a single vine holding me up by my ankle. My face was inches from the red-petal flora.

"Who are you?"

I kept repeating to myself not to say I was Alice. But it still came out of my mouth. "Alice."

Sometimes my mouth is quicker than my mind.

"You are not the Alice flower, you look nothing like her. You don't even have any blue petals."

"I'm not a flower, period! Do you flowers hang out at the entrance of mirrors waiting for people to come around so you can call them flowers?"

"Of course not." The sunflower with a deep voice said. "We don't have the same luxury of moving around like you do. So we hang out, as you put it, because it is all we can do."

"Well, have fun with that then." I started kicking my foot around but that just forced me to swing back and forward. "Now, put me down!"

"That cannot be done." The fey-blasted flower said so calmly.

"Of course it can. Just let me go."

"I'm afraid you don't understand the risk you are in walking around here. This is for your own safety."

"What? My safety? I don't need a bunch of flowers protecting me. Now put me down!" I reiterated but they just weren't listening.

"No. You must stay rooted."

I sighed and stopped swinging around before my head started to hurt too much. "This is because I killed those small flowers isn't it?"

"Dear me, no. They were always complaining and leeching resources from us. Weeds, the lot of them." The flower explained while dangling me further from its face.

"Then why are you holding me up?" I spat my question since I was starting to get dizzy and my head was feeling like a balloon being blown up.

The flower rolled its eyes. "I already told you. A walking flower like you is not safe. You must be rooted."

"Then let me on the ground, so I can root myself!" I spewed, feeling even more pressure in my head from being upside down. This couldn't be very good for me.

Luckily, the flower I had been talking to cried out in pain and the vine around my leg loosened to drop me to the gra.s.s. I crumpled in a pile and groaned before looking through my mess of hair to see the vine flick the little fox through the air as he held on by his teeth.

Brave little guy.

My hand clapped over my mouth as the tiny fox couldn't hang on and went soaring into the sky until he just froze somewhere above where Kit had squashed a lot of the birds.

I could barely manage a breath as I laid there, flabbergasted. The flower behind me cried out and I looked to see it kissing the vine where tiny teeth marks were.

I would have laughed if I wasn't so concerned for whatever just happened to the baby fox. Instead, I stood up and turned on the flora while I heard Kit bounding over to me on the ground.

"What did you do to the poor fox?" I accused and coiled a hand into a fist.

The flower pulled the vine away and looked over my broken body, then to the baby beast floating in the air. But it was Kit that ended up speaking first. "It wasn't the flowers, Dori."

"The snapdragon speaks truth." The flower added. "That happens to all moving flowers in this area now."

I glanced around but all I could see were the fox, the flock of crushed birds and Kit, that could move like me. "Then why aren't more people stuck here?"

"Be-cause..." the flower huffed, "It only just started with the flying rainbow flowers. You would be stuck too if I hadn't grabbed you."

"Oh..." I lowered my head and ground my teeth. "Thanks."

"Now what do we do, Dori?" Kit asked and for the first time I realized the spirit was calling me by a nickname I'd never heard before. At least it wasn't *Red'.

"We find the pile of clothes. Then we'll figure out how to get the fox." I explained while turning to look around at my strange surroundings again.

Then it dawned on me.

"Wait." I shot a glance to Kit, hovering just above me. "How did you know it wasn't the flowers?"

"It is the same magic as before. The kind that doesn't work on me." The spirit shot a stare at me like I was crazy. "Flowers don't do that magic, Dori."

"Neither do humans." I added, mirroring the same look back. I was getting way too comfortable abusing a dragon, even if it wasn't a real one.

The flower brought my attention away from the intensity of our gaze. "The pile of petals?"

I blinked and translated in my head. Petals must mean clothes. "Yes, the petals. You know where they are?"

The vine coiled up and pointed toward the reverse waterfall. "Behind the tainted flowing water. But no flower should go there. We were warned."

I grinned. "Good thing I'm not a flower then."

The red flower whipped its vine around. "No, you can't! You will just end up like the fly trap up there!"

"It's probably right, Dori. Look at the frozen mist around the waterfall, and even here... water flowing in that direction or looking that color is never good."

I did look to the frozen water and the strange waterfall. But it was hardly going to stop me. I just needed a plan.

"Get down here Kit." I demanded and pointed at the ground.

"Not if you are going to hit me anymore." The fake dragon stubbornly refused and even shook its head.

I groaned. "Get down here. And don't p.i.s.s me off or I will hit you again."

"Then..." the dragon searched for words or maybe courage, "then... I'll hit you back!"

"Good. Don't ever let someone strike you, without getting them back." I nodded and watched the spirit descend next to me before grabbing a hold of the mane. I threw myself up onto the dragon's back and took a deep breath.

I had to relax.

My eyes closed as I gripped tight to Kit's hair. "Okay, you can feel the magic, so dodge it and get me to the waterfall. Sound good?"

"Are you sure?" Kit sounded weary, which made me cringe. Maybe this wasn't a good plan.

"It's better than me walking through all that frozen time or whatever it is." I took a deep breath. "Just do it. And tell me when you get to the waterfall."

"Okay..."

My hands and thighs couldn't have wrapped around that dragon tight enough as I felt the brisk wind grate against me. I didn't dare open my eyes, since as long as they stayed closed I could be ignorant to how high in the air we were.

And it stayed like that until I could hear Kit's voice over the rush of water near my ear. "First stop... Creepy waterfall!"

I loosened my fingers and inched open my eyes to see we were still a good ten feet over where the water broke against invisible rocks in the sky.

"Get me lower." I yelled, as calmly as I could manage, to the spirit.

"I'm not sure I can..." The mirror creature glanced down then squeezed an excited bleet. The dragon dived so fast I almost tumbled from the spot I clung to. I managed to grab the mane tightly just in time as my heart pounded in my ears.

Never again. Never riding a dragon, real or fake.

The spirit stopped cold, hovering inches from the orange stream of water, and jolting me to the point of my heart pattering even harder.

Cries came out of the dragon and I realized my fingers were yanking at the golden mane of hair. I let go and turned around on the spirit's back to see a shallow cave with the clothing and my cloak resting in it.

My feet jumped up on Kit's back and I stepped carefully a few times, steadying myself and trying not to look down as I called over the roar of the water. "Lower your tail."

The spirit must have heard me since both back and tail lowered in a slant toward the cave entrance. I nearly fell off again, clinging to Kit's back instead.

I crawled the rest of the way along the ridges and scales until I was hanging on the end of the dragon's tail like it was a flimsy tree branch.

"Back up!" I demanded and wrapped my arms around the tail harder as it bobbed low then twisted high before stopping five feet above the cave floor.

Satisfied I was close enough, I let myself drop to the floor, landing on my back with a gasp. I laid there for a moment just to catch my breath and look to my cloak.

Finally...

Once I was to my feet again I yelled with my hands around my mouth. "Go get the fox. Do whatever you have to, just don't kill him."

The giant dragon head nodded and then the spirit faded into the red sky. A sigh escaped me. Hopefully the fox was alright. I'd have to make it up to him after this.

My eyes s.h.i.+fted back to the clothing and I ran forward, s.n.a.t.c.hing up my cloak as I dropped to my knees.

Something was wrong though. I could tell from the very feel of the fabric.

This was not my cloak. But it was made to look like it.