The Blackhope Enigma Read Online Free Page A

The shadows hadn’t moved. Nor had anything else.
    He rubbed his swollen eyes, feeling slightly calmer inside now. Not like when he’d first woken up and found himself lying on a road in this place, whatever it was. He’d thought he must have been dreaming and had punched himself in the arm. It had hurt. This was no dream.
    He’d ventured over to see the golden juggling balls suspended in the air. He didn’t know why, but he could stand underneath them and they didn’t fall on him. He had looked around the crowd of people staring at the juggler, some with mouths hanging open, some pointing. Only the ones at the front had complete faces.
    Dean felt sick at the horrible memory. The people near the back had shadow eyes, no noses and their mouths were just a stroke of red.
    He had run away, panicked. Everywhere figures were planted like statues.
    He had yelled for his mom and been answered by silence. Hurling himself through the streets, he had fallen over a mangy dog and tripped into a wall. He had finally dragged himself into this empty alley and hidden himself in a corner.
    His stomach rumbled. He had taken a bit of bread from a baker’s basket, but it felt odd and he decided not to try it. The same thing had happened with an orange he’d picked up. He’d tried peeling it, but it was as solid as if it had been carved from wood. If everything here was like this, he was going to starve to death.
    Dean wished he were back in Blackhope Tower with Sunni, before he’d walked around those tiles in the floor and begun to feel dizzy. The last thing he’d seen before his vision faded was that painting.
    A feeling started to tug at Dean from deep inside. The strange clothes people wore in this place, the odd houses, even the animals seemed familiar. The more it made sense, the more dreadful it was.
    His head slumped forward into his hands. How could he be inside a painting? Would anyone ever figure out where he was? And how could they get him back?
    After a while he pulled his jacket hood up over his head, hugged his knees even more tightly, and fell over onto his side. Moments later, he drifted off into a fitful sleep.
    Sunni turned into another twisting lane and looked at the scene around her.
More clone people
, she thought. Fausto Corvo hadn’t given his figures much variety. She saw the same nose over and over, and the same eyes, which was almost as unsettling as the weird, unfinished faces in the shadows and behind the crowds.
    A donkey and cart loaded with sacks of grain caught her eye. She pulled the hat off the driver’s head and perched it between the donkey’s ears. If she came back this way, she would recognize them.
    She drew the lane into a sketch map of the streets she had walked already and labeled it “Donkey with Hat.” So far she had lanes labeled “Oranges in Fountain,” “Upside-Down Dog,” and others, making up a trail she could follow back if she had to.
    “Donkey with Hat” Lane curved up a hill into a park surrounding the castle. Its towers and turrets gleamed in the perpetual morning sun, while its red banners and pennants were apparently flying in the nonexistent breeze.
    Sunni walked along the castle walls until she came to an ancient tree. She hauled herself up until she was on the highest of its limbs and sat down, her legs dangling.
    The view was not as good as she had hoped. She could see some of the lanes she had followed, but others were hidden below. Where the houses ended, masts of ships poked above the rooftops. There was no sign of her stepbrother. On top of that, she felt as if she had been awake for days, with her stomach rumbling continuously.
    “Dean!” Sunni shouted, but the sound was still muffled, as if she had a box over her head. She rummaged through her backpack and pulled out her phone and a half-eaten bar of chocolate.
    Nibbling on one square of chocolate, she stared at the phone. All she wanted to do was to call home and hear her dad’s voice telling her he was