CHAPTER 14 - THE SKY CHANDELIER

From within Wraith Manor, Koji still wrestled with the nightmare dog. He could not believe that this beast was able to grab a bite of his arm. Afterall, Koji was a ghost. He should be invisible. Koji was having trouble moving. He never had a chance to get used to being a ghost. He hoped Michaelah was alright. The ghost panda struggled with the nightmare dog.

Koji jerked himself up and it worked! They flew into the air. Koji leaned into it and phased through the ceiling, dragging the dog, and slamming its head on the barrier. The beast released Koji and he flew out of the mansion and into the sky. He was so quick about it he failed to see the vampires and Carl on the roof. Koji searched the sky frantically for Michaelah.

As soon as he got into the open air he could fly any direction he wanted to. The act of flying itself was what taught him how to do it. The ghost panda flew loopdiloops, over and over again, laughing. He flew into some white clouds and on the other side there was a beautiful crystal palace floating in the air. Koji flew towards it, convinced that’s where Michaelah had gone. The closer he got the more he could see it was not a palace at all. It looked like a giant nest of glass tubes going down like slides.

Koji the ghost panda approached the beautiful oddity in the sky. He was equal parts fascinated by it and excited to see if Michaelah was also there. Before he could reach it, he was intercepted by two giant bugs. Their wings flapped so loud it sounded like wet slaps. They both were giant fruit flies and wore the same outfit. They almost looked like security guards. They did not attack Koji. They merely guided him into the glass nest.

Koji had no idea it was so big until the time it took to get to it. And in that time, on their approach, the giant glass satellite became massive in size. The tubes were the size of city skyscrapers or tunnels. It was truly magnificent. Koji was finally passing through its walls. He knocked into the blue-green glass wall like the nightmare dog back at the haunted house. But how? He was a ghost. He should be able to pass through everything.

Koji shook his head. He noticed that the bugs had stopped and were waiting for him. He hurried up and followed them into the giant glass tube. The tube split and merged several times as they flew up it. Finally, they reached a round room. The glass wall moved seamlessly like it was alive and the room opened to the hallway tube. The bugs threw Koji into the room. Once he was inside he found other creatures hiding in all the corners. The glass tube hallway moved away from the room and the door sealed close, locking them in.

Koji took one look around and then the floor dropped out from under them and all the creatures that were inside fell into different smaller tubes. The only two that didn’t were Koji and another ghost, floating on the other side of the now empty room.

“Michaelah!” Koji screamed.

“Koji?!” Michaelah yelled back, in pure excitement.

They floated together and spun around closely in what could be described as a ghost hug.

“You found me!” she said, so surprised.

“By sheer luck, but I’m glad we did. How are we going to get out of here?”asked Koji.

“I don’t know. But we will find a way back to our bodies. Now that we are together again we can do anything.”

Michaelah grabbed Koji’s ghost hand with her ghost hand and smiled at him. Koji's look went from worried to happy, to match hers. She was right. Together with his friend, they could get through anything.

The floors closed under them. Then another tube from the far side of the room connected and the wall opened. This time two pterodactyls were waiting for them, they wore the same outfits as the giant bugs. Koji looked at Michaelah’s face. Even as a ghost he could see her eyebrows wrinkle. She was figuring it all out. He could tell.

“We should follow them,” Michaelah said.

Koji did what she said and together they left the round room. As they flew through the glass hallway it moved like a giant serpent in the sky. The glass tube moved them up to the top of the satellite. No one really talked. But that never stopped Michaelah.

“Where are we? What is this place?” she asked the guards.

The two pterodactyls looked at each other. They were basically dinosaurs with wings, did they even know how to talk? They knew how to dress. One of them looked back at their two ghost captives and shrugged. They entered another room, this one had golden glass walls that were constantly moving. In the middle of the room was the fattest penguin Koji had ever seen.

“Let me guess,” Michaelah said out of turn, “King Penguin?”

The giant fat penguin grimaced. “Do you really think I would be so basic as to be named after the kind of animal I am?” he asked.

“I take it you haven’t been to many places in Pandamonium, then.”

“My name is King Spencer, and this is my Sky Chandelier. I found it one day while flying through the clouds.”

“You can fly? I didn’t know penguins could-”

“I CANNOT FLY!” the giant chubby penguin stood up from his throne and yelled so hard his goofy, ill-fitted crown almost fell off his head. He adjusted it with his long wings. The outburst made Michaelah stop interrupting.

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King Spencer continued, “My family moved from the Snowlands to the Canopy. There we lived with all the other rainforest creatures, and it was great. But we wanted more. We saw the birds singing but could never fly up to the Symphony. On one of our crazy experiments, I was catapulted from a tree like a sling shot. I needed to be a certain weight to reach the sky, which is why I’m so fat! And when it happened I almost died if it wasn’t for the Sky Chandelier saving me. You see it wants me to collect.”

“Collect?” asked Michaelah.

“I have collected every single creature known to fly. The more I collect the closer I get to flying myself. Also, the more creatures of flight I store the more the Sky Chandelier can traverse the skies.”

Koji was starting to get confused, but Michaelah seemed to be following along. He looked around at the throne room as they continued talking. It looked a lot like the other round room they were being held in but this one had more stuff in it, more shiny stuff. There was a golden wardrobe, but it was made of wood, golden wood, with metal trim. It was round on the bottom so it could move with the room.

“Then take us there,” Koji heard King Spencer say.

“Its called Wraith Manor in Scary Territory,” informed Michaelah.

King Spencer nodded at one of the guards and they left the room. Moments later they felt the entire Sky Chandelier move, as if it was unhinged, like a car switching gears.

Koji looked out through the glass walls. The clouds big enough to see were moving. Well, the clouds were not moving, the chandelier was. They moved at such an incredible speed that to those standing in the throne room and the other round rooms within the Sky Chandelier it barely felt like they were moving at all. That was until the giant glass satellite started moving down towards the ground. The whole thing rumbled and shook.

The ground came upon them so suddenly. First they saw all of Scary Territory through the glass floors, the river, the forest, boggylands, and then the mansion.

“Take me to this painting.” The giant penguin got off his throne and stood up. That also made the round room shake. The tubes swelled and shortened and lowered them onto the roof of the mansion. It was no longer nighttime and there was no sign of the vampires or Carl.

Michaelah and Koji phased back through the roof and the floors until they reached the ground level where the paintings were.

Koji said, “I wonder how he is going to get in.”

Before Michaelah could answer with a guess, the mansion erupted in commotion, the roof caved into the floors and on the other side of the hallway landed King Spencer. The giant emperor penguin was so fat he broke the walls and ceiling of the hallway with every step. He stood up and ripped the ceiling off. Now it looked like the two floors were one. Then he grabbed the walls and pulled them apart, more towards his side and less towards their side. The paintings miraculously remained intact and in their frames on the walls as he did that.

Michaelah wasted no time watching all of the destruction. She found the painting they fell out of and led Koji back through it. And just as she suspected they fell out of the other side in their human and panda bodies as if nothing had ever happened. Koji stumbled out of the way and Michaelah pointed and yelled, “Hey Spencer, its this one right here!”

Koji watched Michaelah run by him for the front doors. The giant penguin was destroying the hallway to get to the painting. He took off his crown and tried to jump through it. Unfortunately, for King Spencer he was too fat to fit through the frame. He got stuck halfway through. Koji sprung into action as the king struggled. The panda jumped up and slammed his butt down onto of the picture frame, giving it the last push it needed to fit in all of the king’s blubber. The giant penguin slipped fully through and from the other side of the room a penguin-ghost floated out from the carnage.

“Now here’s the important part,” Koji said to him, “Fly up!”

Spencer listened and flew directly up towards the Sky Chandelier.

A few moments later the glass tubes came down to suck Michaelah and Koji up back into the Sky Chandelier. As it approached, Michaelah asked him, “Do we want to go back?” Before he could answer, fireworks started going off above the Sky Chandelier and they could hear the faint sound of music and laughter. It was a celebration. They were having a party!

Koji smiled back at Michaelah, “Yeah.”

They both ran into the tubes and were transported back to the throne room. But now the throne room had expanded and connected with the rest of the round rooms in the Sky Chandelier to make one enormous ballroom. All the flying creatures were freed from their enclosures. King Spencer could finally fly and so he celebrated with everyone. The king was a new penguin, well, quite literally, he was a new ghost penguin, but more importantly he had a new attitude. He granted Michaelah and Koji one favor for helping him and they asked for safe passage to the Bamboo Palace.

The king obliged them and gave them the entire party to find their chariot to take them home. As they greeted all sorts of flying creatures who could talk, like bees, and bats, eagles, and angels, no one knew how to get to the Bamboo Palace. Finally, someone knew a traveler who could get them there. As they approached they came across a familiar face. Or so they thought.

“Haveldasher?” Michaelah asked as she approached a white horse with wings. It turned around but it was not the Haveldasher.

“Did you call me?” it asked her.

“I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else.”

“Who did you think I was?”

“The Haveldasher.”

“You are mistaken!” the horse scoffed at her.

“I already apologized. It was an honest mistake.”

“The haveldasher has a horn. Do you see a horn on my head?” it asked her.

“No.”

“No, it doesn’t. I am the AvilPrancer and I do not have a horn.”

“Thank you for correcting me,” Michaelah said carefully with a smile, “I will never make that mistake again. Now, would you be able to take us to the Bamboo Palace.”

“No, way,” the AvilPrancer huffed.

“Now wait a second, Avil,” said one of the Pterodactyl guards. They could talk. It was like a whiney voice, very nasal, which made sense because of their huge noses. The pterodactyl guard continued, “This is by the king’s decree. If they selected you for the voyage then you must take them and ensure their safe arrival. Understood?”

“I understand.” The white winged horse said.

They wasted no time and got on the AvilPrancer. He took them out of the Sky Chandelier, across Scary Territory. It was a rough ride. He was not as graceful as a flyer as his counterpart the Haveldasher. He wasn’t as friendly either. Koji was just grateful to get his body back and he knew Michaelah was too. And now they were on the way home again, maybe this time they would finally make it there.