Heather was in the dark, half buried in black water and mud. She dragged herself out of the swamp, disgusted. She turned the ring on her finger; the rich gold glittered in the dark. The darkness here wasn't the absence of something. This kind of darkness was the presence of something, tangible and thick and humid on her skin, weighing her down with a set of pregnant possibilities. None of them very good possibilities.

Heather touched one of the walls and found it wasn't dirt, but brick, layered with hundreds of years' worth of black slime. She was in a well, she thought. She'd have been a lot angrier about the filth and grime on her if she didn't know her real body was safe in Grandma Chandler's kitchen, and this was more or less a dream. She followed the bricks forward. Better get the hell out of here, and find her friend as soon as she could.

She tripped on something in the mire. She stooped down to see what the hard edge was. Felt like a treasure chest. Heather had always liked shiny things, particularly gold and shiny things; she was able to open the lid. She looked into a pirate's treasure. She pawed through a ruby tiara and a huge rope of pearls and an emerald brooch, bars of solid gold and glistening bracelets hung with dazzling jewels, every one of them convincingly real and solid for all they looked like something from a movie set. She'd be rich; she deserved to be. She picked up the ruby tiara and thought about putting it on.

Then she thought: No. It's not what I came here for. It's a distraction, and probably something bad happens if I steal it.

Heather pinched herself. She'd almost yielded to temptation already. She packed up the shiny things with a pang in her chest, and kept moving forward. It was clear the mire was filled with similar treasures, as she stepped past more treasure-chest lumps in the black grime: a world of wealth, buried in mud.

She heard a loud croaking in the dark, like a giant on a beanstalk trying to clear his throat. She stepped forward until she saw at some light glistening off the shape and finally defining it. She saw an elephant-sized shape that took up most of the well and most of the water.

It was a giant toad, dappled with green and brown. Its long pink tongue hung out of its mouth and dripped slimy moisture into the muddy water. Its throat was swollen like a nest of baby spiders waiting to pop. Its eyes were open and glaring at her, one slit of amber and the other a pale sickly green.

"Heather Chandler," the toad belched. The sound rolled moistly, bouncing low-pitched off the old brick walls of the well. Heather stiffened. She hadn't expected the creature to know her name and it felt like a violation, like a creepy stalker.

Maybe it's not my name, she thought, maybe he - it - knows my grandmother. Heather's name was classic, a family legacy, whereas Heather McNamara's and Heather Duke's parents were just being trendy. Her grandmother and even her great-grandmother, the town witch, were Heather Chandler too.

"I founded the wealth of your family," said the toad in the well. "I am owed a fair exchange."

"Fuck you; I've never made any deals with the likes of you, toadbreath," Heather said, shifting straight into aggression. "I'm looking for my friend. Have you seen a blonde cheerleader anywhere around this crappy hole? If you haven't, you're worthless to me."

The toad burped. Or maybe resonated might be a better word, or bass-baritoned. It was a rich full sound that would have been incredibly impressive if it wasn't completely disgusting - and if it hadn't blown Heather back up against the bricks with the concussive force of the sound. She stood on her feet and glared.

"The hell, toadface?"

"Gold in its hair; sapphire in its eyes; thirty-two white pearls in its mouth," said the toad, or gloated rather. Guess the hair dye wears off in the netherworld, Heather thought aside. "I gave real gold and sapphires and pearls in trade. I think I will accept this payment. You will live in my well and entertain me."

"I should never have trusted that old bitch," Heather reflected. She looked down at her own hands, normal and slightly grubby. "I'm still alive, Mr. Toad. You can't keep me in this nightmare if I don't want it. I've got a body to come back to."

The toad's bass breath brushed over her skin like laughter. "How long do you think a body can live without a soul? Do you see a way out of this well, other than beyond me? You are here as long as I desire company."

Eww. Gross. Heather folded her arms and sat in the driest corner of the well with as much dignity as she could, refusing to speak in an angry silence. Maybe the toad's right. She pinched herself to see if she felt anything like a twitch to return to consciousness. I'm not backing out yet; Heather McNamara's got to be here. She couldn't feel her own body, as if she were actually trapped here. If the old toad's telling the truth, and that's still pretty damn doubtful, I'll die for real if I don't make it back in time.

"If it's company you want, I'll make sure you're very bored," Heather said. "I'll sit and stay quiet and you'll get nothing from me. Or else we could play a game." She tried to force power into her words; her grandmother had warned her that she probably wouldn't have the same ability, but it was still worth trying.

The toad fixed its eyes on her, inclining its head.

"I'm more stubborn than you. More stubborn than anyone," Heather said. "We'll play a game of insults. First one to make the other one cry wins. If I win, you let me out the exit behind you. If you win, you get what you want - entertainment."

Heather remembered another one of Duke's stupid geeky cartoon movie choices. A story about a short guy trapped in a cave with a nasty monster thing, where they played a game of riddles to settle the way out. If stories and rhymes were how you got past this place between life and death, she'd use whatever came to mind.

And a game of insults was more Heather Chandler's style than silly childish riddles.

The toad seemed to consider her offer. Its scales - would you call them scales? Not so much scales, as dappled bits on its repulsive, slimy skin - wrinkled a bit and its giant eyes blinked. "Let the game begin," it said.

Heather started light. "I bet there are better creeps to get kidnapped by in this messed-up world," she said. "I could've been snatched up on a black horse by a sexy highwayman with a rippling black cloak blowing in the wind. A giant slimy toad who looks like something the dog threw up after eating haggis from a garbage pail is more than a few steps down."

"You're ugly and have a shrill voice like a corncrake," the toad replied.

"Are toads invertebrate? You could've fooled me, looking at you," Heather said. "You're covered in slime; you look like a marinated bull's penis. Sometimes I tell guys they're hung like a gorilla, which only works on them if they've never been to the zoo. I guess toads are worse off. You're a jelly-boned, snivelling, dripping, drivelling, slobbering, rotten-egg-yolk stinking, mouldy, old throbbing pus-filled carbuncle. If you were a hundred times cleaner, I'd say you still weren't clean enough for me to spit on."

"You will remain here forever after your body dies. It will decay into green-tainted bones and your spirit will remain trapped with me," the toad said.

"After I win today and beat you into the ground, you'll look back on the worst thing that has ever happened to you, and think it was the best day ever," Heather said.

"You will scream and plead and beg me to allow you into the Beyond, and I will never yield," said the toad. Heather didn't want to think about that option.

"You remind me of eau de toilette, which is French for, you smell like shit," she said. It probably is. "And you're sans-couilles - no balls." Heather's French accent was, of course, magnifique, but her insult vocabulary was surprisingly lacking. She'd make Veronica write her a cheat sheet of rude French phrases once they were back in the real world, Heather thought. "Uglier than Quasimodo, Hunchback of Notre-Dame. Cowardly, spineless, as brave and strong as a puddle of puppy piss on the ground. You're a collection of bad smells looking for a sewer - oh, wait, you already live in one."

"You have a face like the Thorn Lady's buttocks," the toad said. Evidently it was starting to run low on ideas, although it grinned as if it found Heather amusing. So she kept up firing her shots.

"Your intelligence is sharp like my grandmother's Vaseline," Heather said.

"Your clothes are dirty."

"The only way you could get laid would be to crawl up a chicken's ass."

"You're too short and thin."

"Someone phone the Society for the Protection of Ugly Animals, because here's one that's about to go extinct."

"Humans are an endangered species in this world," the toad reminded her.

"If I were you I'd pay to make my species endangered - in the glorious cause of reducing the ugly population," Heather said.

"Insolent little lamb," the toad said.

"Ugly bastard."

"Vile repellent mortal." A brief lull fell in the conversation, as the toad seemed to calculate a new long speech of its own to match Heather's wit. By its big grin, it seemed amused by her. Heather strolled casually forward, pretending she'd almost enjoyed the volley as much as the toad.

"No, seriously, you're about to go extinct," she said. "You have four or five puce lumps on your right eyelid," Heather said. "They're very ugly and you've probably caught cancer so you'll die."

The toad blinked. "Which eyelid?"

"I said the right eyelid. If you can't remember a simple thing like that, I guess you have a brain like Swiss cheese, full of holes crawling with maggots," Heather said.

"Which of my three eyelids?" The toad blinked again. It was an elaborate process, but Heather pretended not to notice it.

"Everyone has one eyelid, or didn't you take Bio 101?" she said. "It was gross, I made Veronica cut up all the toads for me. She'd run a scalpel along all their vulnerable parts, castrate them, pin them open and take a look at their insides." Let it enjoy that fun mental image.

"I have three, you dimwitted human," the toad said. Heather walked up as if to see. Translucent eyelids, an upper, a lower, and a third one.

"No way," Heather said, coming closer to look. The toad blinked irritably as if to show off. She leant closer and closer, as if she were begrudgingly coming to admire the slitted amber against her will.

Then she plunged her hand into its eye. She hit as hard as she could. The toad soon shook her off. Heather bumped into the back wall again, painfully. The toad shouted out. The sound made her ears bleed.

"I won the game!" Heather shrieked. "You're crying, first one to tear up wins! I never said it had to be with the insults."

A tear dripped from the toad's mildly injured eye. It paused its attack on Heather.

"Our bargain was that I would allow you through the exit behind me," the toad said. It moved aside. The bricks behind it seemed to part at its will, leading to a deeper black beyond. "You win exactly what you asked for. Now run."

Heather ran, still in pain. She didn't turn back, not even when the toad added:

"My children are waiting for you ... "

More swamp mess lined this tunnel; it was dark and grimy, but seemed more likely to actually lead somewhere than the place she'd been trapped in before. Heather rushed through the mud and mire, panting harder than she'd ever done in gym class. Heather McNamara was the only one of her friends who actually liked to sweat. For a dream, all the jogging and dashing felt ridiculously realistic. Heather almost wished she'd done more laps for the school coach, instead of making Veronica forge sick notes.

Then she saw the first mini-toad, jumping up and leaping at her. It wasn't nearly as big as its father, only human sized. Does Mr. Toadface have a ladyfriend - eww eww gross eww - or does it breed like when you cut one starfish in half and make two starfish? No time to wonder about that. Heather lashed out with a kick and the toad-child fell back in the mire. She ran on. There was another, then a second and a third of the toad-children, moving in formation, yet more hopping behind and before in the darkness, coming to surround her.

—

Heather Duke ran her fingers down the pearl edgings of her kirtle. Her new dress was about three times as big as she was. The dress was covered with a partlet in heavy blackwork embroidery, puffed at the sleeves with silver and diamonds, stiffened with whalebone, swollen with six layers of foamy white petticoats. Four thick ropes of emeralds hung around her neck to below her waist. Her hair was tied up on her head with ivory pins that dug into her scalp.

She looked like a princess. She hated it. She couldn't move, only wait at the window of the tower and look down.

The tower was narrow, round and rotting stone, a spire with a single decaying window, wide because the blocks had fallen away. Duke supposed it wasn't really timeworn, in a place like this; it was timeworn because that was what castles were supposed to be.

Below, two mediocre knights in dented grey armor rode at one another with lances raised. Eventually, one toppled the other. The victor moved to the next competition in the lists. Fallen knights in this afterworld, mostly dull ugly men with wens and pimples, facing each other in some pathetic endless battle.

Over the prize. A tournament needed a prize. A princess in a tower, who'd belong to the victor whether she wanted that or not. A powerless trinket, a token to look good and say nothing. That was all anyone had ever wanted from Heather Duke. Her parents wanted her to look good in public and get high grades. Heather Chandler wanted her because her name was Heather and because she'd once dreamt of disobeying her. One could not defy the red queen without punishment. As soon as Chandler took control of her will, Duke had become a pretty silent trophy in her wake, looking beautiful and saying nothing, the third Heather.

At least Martha had been a real friend when they were little kids too young to know any better, but Martha was dead and gone.

Duke once fantasized she had real power in her cards, but that was nothing.

Veronica was the one who could have real power if she wanted, but she hadn't reached to take it when she had the chance. Duke didn't get it. If Veronica had power, it'd only help her here and now. It would help her rescue Duke.

Duke was shocked at herself for thinking that, assuming Veronica would bother to come for her. But maybe it wasn't so bizarre a thought. Veronica stayed with her that night when she'd realized she had no power, stuck by her. They fought monsters from this horrible upside-down world together and Veronica was still standing, still free.

Or so Duke hoped, trapped in her tower above the sound of clashing blades.

Come for me, Veronica.

Please.

—

Veronica heard a ringing about her neck. A collar like a pet's collar; a silver bell shook on it. It was buckled securely on her. She stood on some grey cliff, wind buffeting her from every direction, a fantastical grey stonescape. Grey dust and sharp pebbles flew in the fierce wind. Tiny caves dotted the landscape as if they'd been hollowed out with machine guns.

She couldn't see Duke anywhere, despite the fact they'd come at the same time. Retrieve Heather McNamara's soul from the netherworld. Piece of cake. Not bloody likely.

Had to find Duke, was her first thought. Then it dawned on her that she had to save herself first of all.

She heard barking around her. No. Baying. Baying, as if of hounds. Veronica looked down at her own hands. She was herself, but at the same time she was also a fox. The prey in some wild hunt, from some dream another person had dreamed in another world.

She could hear the hounds. She ran. Her body had a fox's speed here, quick and nimble, tireless as if she ran on four legs instead of two. She heard the dogs and even felt their hot breath on her flanks, seeking to bite and kill. She forced herself into one of the caves, squeezing through a passage too narrow for her barking pursuers to find. She dived into water, swimming, her scent lost in the underground river. Finally she forced the collar off her neck, running a stick through it. She stuffed the bell with waterweed to silence it and walked along the stream bed.

She hoped Duke wasn't going through anything nearly as bad as this. The past few days had caused Veronica to actually know her friend, know her much better than for the entire period of time she'd run with the Heathers. Duke seemed a quiet, bookish girl obsessed with vomiting - she was a girl overwhelmed by bitterness and the suppressed, screaming desire to fight, a spiral overwound until it would leap in any strange direction. She's the way she is because Chandler's power beat her down. She fought her for years first, much longer than I fought. She's strong. Maybe strong enough to get out of this world together.

They defeated the birds, defeated Ash-and-Cinder. Duke claimed she was powerless but she'd stayed the course, strategic and canny, coming up with plans for them like a general. I'll find you, Veronica promised her friend. A vivid memory of Duke's face the night she'd destroyed cards and cloak came to her, clenched and determined, bloodless and fierce, sparks lighting the tangles of her hair. Her bony fingers had been stiff as icicles in Veronica's hand. Duke faced the loss of her power head-on, vowing to fight back nonetheless.

Veronica wished she could say these things to Duke, wished that she could find the right words. You're not alone. I admire you. Let's rescue each other.

The path before her widened into glowing greenery. The sort of place where a fox might hide anywhere, might find friends.

Then two more hounds reared out of the forest. Both large, much larger than any real dog, the sort of creatures that might be used to guard the river Styx from stray lyre-players. They were hunting hounds, but at the same time they had human faces. Recognizable human faces.

Murdered souls, unquiet in their graves, doomed to roam this place that was not a place.

"Who knew we'd find you so soon, Ronnie?" the dead Kurt Kelly asked, circling his prey. "Welcome to our world."

You hurt Duke, Veronica thought. Go to hell, assuming you're not already there.

"You're that fucker's girl," Ram said. He still wore an image of the wound that killed him, the back of his skull covered in blood. Apparently J.D.'s shot hadn't injured any of the minimal grey matter Ram actually used. "Let's bite half her limbs off and rape what's left."

And, as a ghost, it also seemed what few inhibitions and social graces he'd once had were also gone.

"Ex-girlfriend," Veronica clarified, stepping back.

"You're a girl," Kurt said, and then the second chase was on.