Chapter 4: Crossing the Auradon Wall
This was the first time Audrey ever got so close to the Auradon Wall. With its status as a hybrid of all the known walls, it was impossible to determine how tall this foundation of constantly cleaned white stones was. They couldn't even see tips of what could be on the other side. There were no doors, no gates, and no way for any car to possibly go through. All that really stood out was the massive mist that shrouded the other side. Unlike the Isle in the past, it was evident that nobody could see the silhouettes of the other side.
"Will the van still be enchanted enough to go through?" Gothy was starting to wish she hadn't purchased that hiking equipment.
"One way to find out." Audrey hit the brake. Gothy held on for dear life as Audrey drove towards the obstacle of stones… and blinked when the van drove on it, perfectly parallel. Audrey looked partially unfazed while the stag managed to stand perfectly upright without even falling. Once they reached the pathway at the top of the wall, Audrey parked the van and they got out to inspect the mist. It looked like any kind of thick mist that stands out over a lake on a foggy day, but what seemed to be the most disturbing was how the mist had… electrical sounds traveling through it. It was almost as if the mist could be bearing some potentially dangerous safety measure.
"You want me to touch it first?" Audrey asked.
"No." Gothy sighed and walked up to the mist. She held out her hand, not sure what to expect but hoping for something to let her in. She needed to go to the other side. She needed to find her sister.
Her hand went through the first layer of the mist. Thunder boomed and rainbow bolts came through the mist, dragging it back as if thundering hands were pulling away a strange curtain. Some sort of light came through the opening, but as the girls looked over the edge, they saw the wall going down towards darker mist. Even after opening up, the mist still refused to show what was out there.
"You ready for this?" Audrey asked.
"Yeah… we're just going into unknown territory, talking to people we don't know to find my sister, and my only allies are a depressive magical princess and her Bloody Bambi." Gothy shook her head. "We'll be fine."
Audrey turned to the other side of the pathway. From where they stood on the wall, the entirety of Auradon stood out. She could have sworn she saw the distant Auradon Prep and Isle of the Lost as distant specks. She couldn't see her own kingdom through all those green lands. She never imagined Auradon to be so small from where she was.
The same way she didn't expect a bloodhound to sneak on her, bite her ankle, and start dragging her. "GET OFF!" She shot a blast at the dog, sending it flying.
"Princess!" Gothy rushed to Audrey, whose hand stiffened as it touched the bleeding wound. More bloodhounds came running in and circling the girls. As they barked angrily, Gothy recognized the Corona sun on their collars.
"Who gave you the order to have the bloodhounds attack them?" King Eugene and the guards approached them.
"The queen said to stop them from crossing the wall…"
"Unharmed. Well, Rapunzel did say to keep Gothy unharmed, but still…"
"Eugene, enough!" Rapunzel came up, accompanied by Ben and Mal.
"Why did Audrey get bit?" Mal demanded.
As the royals started bickering, Gothy noticed a series of banging coming from the van.
"Gothy…" Gothy looked back and saw Queen Rapunzel approaching cautiously. She pulled Audrey as far away from the nearest bloodhounds as she could. The animals didn't seem to care that Audrey was too distraught to even respond. The only thing the princess could do was cover her still bleeding wounds and let out a whimper. If Gothy had to guess, the princess had never experienced actual physical injuries until now. The banging in the van was worsening.
"Gothy, you can't go there." Queen Rapunzel pointed at the open mist that still waited for them to go through. "It's too dangerous."
"I don't care." Gothy spoke quietly.
"I know you want to find Cassandra, I really do. But cross that mist… I don't know if you'll ever be able to come back. All those who went there never came back… and when we try to go for them, the mist won't let us through. If Cassandra decides to push you away like she chose to push herself away from us, you'll be trapped in a dangerous unknown you don't understand."
Gothy didn't flinch.
"Don't cross. Come back to Corona with us. It'll be your home. You could live with me and my family at the palace."
The queen held out her hand for Gothy. Gothy stiffened at the sight of the kind hand and the other watchers' hopeful looks. She wasn't familiar with such kindness. The princess-now-queen that her mother had wasted years on was genuinely offering her to live them. To be a part of their family. Gothy didn't even know this woman and she was treating her like the little sister she wanted.
Sister.
"Were you and Cassandra friends?" Gothy bit her lip.
Rapunzel's expression saddened, as if to predict the inevitable. "Very."
"Then you know why I can't stay…"
Rapunzel nodded with a small smile and pulled herself away. "Tell Cassandra that I miss her."
Her husband went along with it as Rapunzel stepped further away from Gothy and had the guards bring the bloodhound back. Gothy struggled to help Audrey stand up.
"Gothy, let Audrey go!" Mal said. "Don't you see she needs to go to a medic?"
"Oh, she'll be fine. I'll bandage her ankle when we get to the other side," Gothy said.
"You can't just take Audrey with you! Her family is worried sick! She'll never be able to see them again if she goes with you!"
"Why should I?" Gothy asked in a cold manner. "Everyone's treating her like dirt and her family has made it clear that her usefulness equals that to a shelf of identical princess dolls. Audrey came with me willingly! I didn't even ask for her to come, she wanted to come! She didn't even want to go back when the Archive Librarian made it clear we have to go over this damn wall!"
Mal's eyes were glowing green.
"Look, it's nice that you're growing fond of her… She's been having a rough time," Ben tried the diplomatic approach. "I can imagine how much you want to find your sister. If you want to go, we understand. But Audrey has a family in Auradon… They love her and worry about her so much."
"I know." And just like that, Gothy went to kick the van's back door open. The stag stomped its way out, but it looked different than usual. Its horns were larger and as sharp as knives, its red eyes wider and lacking irises, and its mouth bearing sharp teeth. When the bloodhounds barked at it, the stag threw an inhuman howl all while bearing its teeth. The dogs ran away like wet puppies.
"So does this Bloody Bambi." Gothy gestured to the group with her head. "Bloody Bambi, meet the people who sent their mutts to chew on your nature-loving princess."
As Gothy had anticipated, the now monstrous red stag DID NOT take it well. It immediately charged at the group. Mal turned into a dragon and shot her fire at it, but the stag literally ran up her fire blast and bit her in the arm. Gothy dragged Audrey into the car and forced her onto the passenger seat while she took the driver's seat.
"Now might be a good time to go!" Gothy shook Audrey. The latter was getting woozy from her blood loss.
"Noble steed, proud and fair, you shall take us anywhere…" Audrey said weakly. The van immediately drove down the wall's pathway just as the guards took pursuit. As the van drove, the mist spun so the opening would catch up to them.
"We need to turn into that entrance anytime soon!" Gothy shouted as the van got dangerously close to one of the wall towers and guards were planning on barricading them. A screech alerted them. When the guards saw Dragon Mal being thrown at them, they made a run for the hills. When Mal crashed onto the tower, the van took a drastic left turn. Gothy was unable to keep her eyes closed. The stag got out of its monstrous form and rushed in the back of the van.
Ben shouted a hopeless 'no' as the mist closed.
Later, in Auradon
Ben came in, carrying a bandaged Mal with him. His parents, their friends, and Audrey's family looked in horror as Ben placed Mal on an armchair. The blood didn't cease; it kept staining through the bandage.
"What happened?" Evie asked.
"Audrey went to the other side of the Auradon Wall… with Gothy Gothel," Ben said.
Gasps came all over the room. Queen Leah fell into even more tears while Beast checked Mal's wound. "It's worsening."
"Where's Hades?" Ben asked him. "Mal got bit while she was a dragon. He might know how to patch up her injury."
"She got bit while she was in dragon form?" King Phillip looked incredulous. "I threw a sword at her mother's stomach and it was probably the size of dragon Maleficent's thumb! Look at your fiancée! It's almost as if she got her entire arm bit off! What could be big enough to bite her?"
"Well it wasn't really that big! But it wasn't natural either!"
"What wasn't?" Evie asked.
"The red stag that was with them." Ben explained how he and Mal went to Corona after the strange tar flooding, how Queen Rapunzel theorized that Gothy was looking for her missing half-sister Cassandra, how they tried to intercept the girls at the wall, and how the stag had attacked them after Gothy had informed it that a Corona bloodhound had bit Audrey before following them through the mist.
"I'll have a word with a pan-swinging friend of yours!" Leah told Aurora in anger. "Those flea-packed vermin mutts biting my granddaughter! And now she's stranded in some land she doesn't know!"
"Maybe it's better that way."
It was the former King Hubert of all the people who spoke this. He had been sitting by the fireplace, looking at a picture of him playing with Audrey as a child. Audrey looked so innocently unprepared, yet cheerful, about the pressures that awaited. He held on to the picture closely.
"I am very tempted to punch you right now…" His sister-in-law threatened.
"Try to think of what our granddaughter is going through, Leah," Hubert said patiently. "With the expectations we all threw at her and are now drained down the sink, and those dreadful weeks after nearly dying and her friend's actual death, Audrey must have felt meaningless. We made her feel meaningless." The others looked at him as he continued. "After all, perhaps Audrey chose to leave Auradon and aid in the reunion of the Gothel offspring because it could give her a sense of self-meaning. Perhaps by leaving, our granddaughter is finally going to discover who she ought to be. Not because we told her what she ought to be, but because she's certain that's who she wants to be. And if self-discovery can only be found in the unknown, we should accept that."
Leah bit her lip. "But how will she come back?"
"Of her own free will?" Hubert shrugged. "We could always see if we can find a breach in that mist, but I don't think we ought to interfere with Audrey's adventure." Hubert looked away from Leah and at Beast. "I am curious though, Beast, because Stephan never told me before he died. What is on the other side of the wall?"
Meanwhile
The moment she opened her eyes, Gothy forced herself out of the van and coughed. She didn't know long she had fainted when the van fell through the mist, but she was relieved that it didn't explode when it landed on the ground. As far as time concerned her, all she could determine was that it was nighttime, courtesy of the sky full of stars. Unfortunately, the area was too foggy for her to get a clue as to where they were. There were silhouettes of trees filled with leaves and a distant sound of ravens having a tiff, but that was the best clue she had. With the foggy location, she wasn't sure where the mist wall was.
It took at least half an hour, but Gothy wrapped Audrey in the latter's cloak and hauled her onto the stag's back. The bleeding continued and now the princess was getting on the verge of delusions, rambling about owls and songbirds. The stag didn't seem to mind as Gothy used ropes to strap both Audrey and their bags on it. Then again, considering how it went monstrous before and practically gave Mal its massive dental autograph, it didn't surprise Gothy if he carried heavy load.
"Now what?" She asked the stag. "We need shelter. Some medic's house would be preferable…"
Right on instinct, the stag immediately walked through a pathway of dark cypress trees. Gothy smirked at herself as she followed that animal. The beast had such a blind devotion to Audrey, she wouldn't be surprised if it could immediately sniff out a place for her to get healed. As they went through the cypress tree pathway, the fog slightly lightened. Not enough for Gothy to have a better view of the entire area, but enough to see that they were approaching some sort of house. Relief came to her when she distinguished the smell of cut wood and the shape of a chalet, but her relief turned to fright when she picked up a sugary scent. Sure enough, when they got closer to the chalet, the fog cleared up enough to show that the chalet made half by wood, half by gingerbread.
"Are you mad?" She hissed at the stag. She never had an encounter with such witches in her life, but Gothy knew one thing that almost every VK knew: don't trust someone who lives in a gingerbread house in a strange forest. Still, the beast wouldn't have come here if the occupants were dangerous. She sighed and walked up to the candy cane door. The doorbell rang like marbles dropping.
"Ugh! The smell of fugitives and beasts, what a fright!" An old, partially accented voice shouted angrily on the other side. "Who dares knock at our door tonight?"
"Refugees!" Gothy exclaimed. "My friend got bit by a bloodhound!" She quickly turned back to Audrey and freaked out when her continued bleeding came with paling skin. "Ah! How long were we in that mist?"
It was perhaps the mention of the mist that caused the door to bolt open. Rather than dominate Gothy with questions, the chalet owners, a woman and her daughter, rushed to Audrey. The woman straightened her glasses and cautiously took Audrey's bleeding foot in her hand. "Blast the bloodhound that bit her!" She grimaced through her clenched teeth and pulled out a knife from her apron pocket. Gothy feared that she'd amputate Audrey, but the woman cut off the binds and pulled Audrey in her arms.
"How is she still alive?" The daughter took off the bags and carried them inside. "It takes nearly a whole day for someone to go through the mist. She should have been dead by now!"
"Powerful magic is in her!" The witch ushered them all inside.
"So you can fix her?" Gothy asked hopefully.
"A recovery spell to refill her veins and good old practical herbal medicine to rid off the bacteria and seal the wound ought to do it!" The witch cautious placed Audrey in a red-cushioned sofa. "But it will take her all night to fully recover. Ingwer, show them to the guest room. I'll bring up the blonde one upstairs when I'm done."
"Sure thing, Ma." Ingwer showed Gothy to the stairs and tried to reach out to the stag. It shook it head and sat by the couch.
"It won't leave her," Gothy explained to Ingwer. "He's very attached to her."
"Fine. As long as he doesn't interrupt me," the witch replied indifferently as she searched through her wooden cabinets.
Ingwer pulled Gothy up the wooden staircase. Carvings of candy and hung decorative dishes gave the walls some decorations. As they reached the second floor, a gingerbread raccoon ran out of the bathroom, clearly to avoid some kind of bath. When it noticed Ingwer giving it a look, it ran back in the bathroom. A splash was heard.
"You'll have to forgive Ma. She doesn't mind taking in refugees for some time, but we had a rather wild day," Ingwer told Gothy as politely as she could. "We spent all day cleaning the chalet. I was giving Biscuits his bath and she was catching a break when you knocked."
"I'm really sorry," Gothy said. "I didn't know where to go, our van crashed, and…"
Ingwer interrupted her by shutting Gothy's mouth with her finger. "You can talk about it tomorrow at breakfast." She opened a door shaped like a chocolate bar and led Gothy inside a rather nice room. Two twin-sized beds with the bedposts designed like lollipops, a white-painted wooden nightstand carrying a strawberry-shaped lamp, a matching desk and chair, and white carpeted floor. The room looked as comfy as it was themed after yummy things.
"You can sleep here for the night. Our bathroom is at your disposal. I'll heat up some soup and bring it up to you before you tuck in. Do you happen to have any preferences between butternut squash soup and mushroom soup?"
"What's the major difference?"
Ingwer pondered. "Well I have a fondness for both of them, but the butternut squash soup has a cup's worth of Cuckoo-Clock Cinnamon; you'll be hearing cuckoo clock sounds in your head at every hour until you manage to digest it all. As for the mushroom soup, it includes Ostracizing Onions; I'd wait 48 hours until the effects of ostracizing others non-stop wear off."
Gothy groaned. "I suppose the butternut squash will be better to keep me on high alert. May I have that, please?"
