The Gender Fall (The Gender Game #5)

“Home?” Alex exclaimed, rushing after them into the crowded hallway. “We can’t go home without permission, I’ll need to—”

Two things happened at once: the gray man disappeared, and Natalie—as if struck by a bolt of electricity—lurched forward into a swarm of students, vanishing from Alex’s view.

“Natalie!” Alex called, his voice drowned out by the loud chattering. He pushed past students to chase after her, but when he got through the crowd and reached the other, sparser end of the hallway, she was nowhere in sight. Alex felt a breeze and looked to his left.

The side door was open.

He sprinted to it and slipped out, emerging in the parking lot at the front of the school. He looked around for Natalie, but still couldn’t see her. She must have left the compound already.

What in the world was going through her head? Alex couldn’t even begin to fathom it.

He hurried through the parking lot exit and scanned the adjoining road. He figured, if she really did remember the way back to his house, she would have taken the first left down Jamesdon Street, so he dashed directly to it.

His instinct had been correct. He spotted her about halfway down, though she had slowed to a walk and appeared to be moving with purpose toward Ellis Street, which ran perpendicular to Jamesdon Street.

The gray thing was with her.

Everything about it clashed with the placid, beautiful street. Amid the suburban houses, its eerie aura seemed almost to glow, warping the features around him into strange mockeries of their original forms. Trees seemed to loom, branches looked more like claws, and houses that had felt normal moments before now seemed to contain eerie lights.

Alex swallowed, rallying himself before rushing forward.

“Natalie!” he shouted. “Wait!”

She ignored him. She had stopped at the beginning of the road that…should have been Ellis Street. When Alex looked for the sign, however, he found only a rusting iron guidepost pointing in the direction Natalie was looking. Upon it, a single word was written: Spellshadow.

“Natalie!” he urged.

Once again, it was as though she couldn’t hear him. The emotion was gone from her face, her cheeks slack. She stepped forward, and the man behind her nodded, pushing her lightly. When she continued to walk, he let out a deep, throaty sigh.

Alex caught up, grabbing Natalie’s arm.

“Where are you—”

She shook him off with such alarming force that Alex went sprawling to the cement. He shouted in shock, leaping back to his feet just in time to see her and her gray companion strolling away down the lane.

“What?” he gasped. He had known she was fit, but that was just insane.

He tried again, rushing forward and calling her name, ignoring the gray, tattered thing and grasping her shoulder. Again, she threw him off easily, and he landed hard in a scratchy bush. He rose, staring as she made her way.

Alex surged after her, but the second he stepped onto the lane, he felt something come over him. A sensation that was almost indescribable. Like he had just stepped into a dream.

The air suddenly became soft and sweet, filled with the smells of strange flowers and hot sand. Where the houses had just been tall, proud structures with columns and rolling lawns, they became eerie things, all turrets and twisting staircases, some of them bent in improbable ways. Alex stared around, stunned for a moment, before realizing that Natalie and the gray figure were far ahead of him.

“Natalie!” he bellowed, and sprinted as fast as he could down the lane. Still she was ahead of him, and would not turn around, though he called for her again. How could she be so far ahead? She and the figure were walking at a measured pace, while he was running hard, feeling a stitch in his side. He stopped for breath, his hands on his knees. He was no closer to her than when he had begun. It was like a nightmare.

Then darkness fell abruptly. As if it had run out of energy, the sun froze overhead, and slid down off the horizon to the south. The moon, fat with light, burgeoned atop distant mountains, seeming to cover half the skyline with its girth, spreading a wave of resplendent light out over the houses, which continued to grow stranger.

Alex saw a building shaped like a coiled snake, wrapping around and around until it reared up into a tall tower, with window eyes and a long, crimson flag for a tongue. Crows were clustered upon its roof, screeching into the twisted night. Another house was built like a tree, little colored lights winking out at him from between the branches and leaves.

Each home he passed, however, was more derelict than the last. They crumbled, consumed by ivy and moss, their walls collapsing inward like punctured balloons. Indeed, Alex saw no sign that anyone had lived in any of these fantastical houses for generations, or even longer. There was something in the stillness of this place that reminded him of a graveyard.

Up ahead, the lane had reached its end, and finally he seemed able to catch up. He ran the remainder of the path, stopping just short of the pair.

“Natalie!” he gasped, moving to grab her hand. “Natalie, WAIT!”

Once more she brushed him away with unnatural force, and he crashed heavily to the path. He raised his head, the breath knocked out of him, to see the man standing next to a pair of massive iron gates with Natalie at his side. The gates were wreathed in ashen, gray ivy that completely obscured whatever lay beyond.

The ragged man reached out and, with an almost delicate touch, pushed one gate open. There was a protesting scream of rusted hinges as it swung inward.

A sinking, queasy feeling came over Alex where he lay, panting. He didn’t know what the hell was happening, but there was one certainty he couldn’t shake: She should not pass through these gates, should not go anywhere with this man.