As the captain guided Mena back to town, she whimpered quietly. How could Deidre leave her to be executed? Mena was certain that Deidre adored her, and it was upsetting how quickly she dismissed her. Even if Mena battered up her house, it had been a set-up from Cletus all along. That made Deidre’s betrayal sting worse. She sobbed as they reached the cobblestone streets, and the captain curtly told her to shut up.

Sniffing loudly, but unable to wipe the snot and tears that were running down her bright red face, she grimaced, wanting badly to whip out her magic and turn him into a miserable toad. She still had her powers at least. Perhaps she could create a diversion and escape to freedom.

As they reached the town-square, a crowd had gathered around a quickly assembled wooden stage. There, gleaming in the sunlight, was the silver blade of a wooden guillotine raised high above everyone and everything, ready to fall like silent-but-deadly rain on her neck. Mena swallowed hard as she approached the crowd. The crowd was already roused in a peppy, but harrowing chant of “W-I-T-C-H-E-S, who do we eradicate! Witches witches!”

It would’ve been catchy, if it wasn’t so bloodthirsty, Mena thought, before she was belted on the head with an enormous rutabaga. As the juices leaked down her miserable face, they intermingled with her tears and snot. Carrots and tomatoes followed, splattering or bonking her on the head, and it was only when one misplaced squash hit the captain’s spotless armor, did he give a cry of “Stop arsing around here.”

The vegetables ceased as the captain sidestepped a small puddle of dirty water and lead Mena up the steps to the guillotine. Mena noticed a familiar face standing on top of the stage. Strapped to a pole, and smelling of kerosene, was her scarecrow.

“Hi Mena!” Straw-Woman said.

“What are you doing here?” Mena muttered.

“So,” Straw-Woman said, “I was behaving like you said, but then that rude, smelly farmer walked up to me this morning and told me I was a brainless sack of straw, and I couldn’t resist trying to give him a face full of hay. And even though I put up a fight, guards grabbed me and took me here.”

“Wonderful,” Mena said as they placed her head beneath the looming blade.

She was certainly feeling anything but wonderful. Only when several long-haired page boys blew their trumpets did she look up again. A pink and white checkered carriage lead by five white stallions pulled up and the crowd stepped aside as a red carpet rolled all the way to the steps of the guillotine.

“Here ye! Here ye!” cried a man with a pointed, upturned nose, and a pink-and-white hat and robe. “Make way for his majesty, King Maximillian Budaludicus the 1st..”

The sound of groaning filled the air as a very large man forced his way of the carriage, nearly tipping it over in the process. Mena gaped as she watched the most colorful man on this side of Lol Pop parade down the carpet. Light blond hair (fitted with an enormous golden crown) draped over his round, beady eyed, bearded face and his even rounder butt jiggled as he moved. With a trailing silver cape of what resembled silver wolf-hound fur with the wings still attached and green and pink Hebra striped pants pulled over his belly (fasted with a big button that was about to come undone at any second) Mena had no idea the king of this country was so extravagant and decadent. A prominent thought of skepticism came over her as she realized this was the man who claimed to have slain Anguish, according to Cletus. Looks could be deceiving but somehow Mena had doubts in her head due to the man’s comical air.

The man climbed to the top of the stage as it wobbled beneath his weight and he puffed and panted to regain his breath. The page followed him to the top. “All rise, his royal Budaludicus is about to speak.”

“Thank you, Leroy,” King Budaludicus said in a voice that was both booming and pompous. “For score and ten, I vanquished the vile queen of the witches and yet, hither we have discovered the presence of an all-new threat to our fair town of Growden. Feast your eyes on the latest demon cast from the very depths of hell.”

Mena rolled her eyes and muttered, “I’m so scary,” provoking a series of shrieks and cries for her head on a platter. Somehow, she found herself terrified and yet, over this whole farce at the same time. This execution had debased itself to a level of a circus performance, and she wished for this clownish nightmare to be over with.

“The creature admits to its devilry!” Budaludicus gasped, sounding like his arteries had clogged in horror over the mere sight of Mena. “And feast your eyes on the possessed artifact of doom that accomplices her.”

“Rar!” Straw-Woman playfully exclaimed, reveling a lot more in her role as the devil’s tool.

It inspired an even greater reaction from the crowd. Some women swooned and fainted, some of the men did too.

“The twisted artifact hath roared” Budaludicus bellowed. “Worry not, we shall incinerate it, and behead the heathen witch. But first, does anyone have any objection to us liberating our fair country from the devil’s daughter?”

The central square was packed broadly with people and every single person chanted. “Kill the witch. Kill the witch”

Mena’s numbness gave way to another outburst of emotion. She couldn’t believe so many people despised her—an ordinary girl, in spite of her powers. If they had gotten to known her, and perhaps not known of her powers, most of them would have reacted like Deidre. Tears seeped down her face. She wanted to disappear and end this once and for all. Nobody wanted her anyway.

Suddenly, a sweet but defiant country drawl came from the Mena’s left: “I object”

Mena looked to her left and saw Deidre standing up on the stage next to Budaludicus. She looked radiant in her yellow-green sundress like a defender descended from the sun. “This ‘witch’” Deidre said with her fingers making air quotations, “is merely a young girl, and not only that, she is also the daughter I never had. Please, let her come away with me and I swear on the grave of my husband and child, she’ll never hurt any of y’all.”

Deidre beamed at Mena with a smile warmer and more life affirming than a ray of sunshine. “I couldn’t let them kill y’all Mena. I still love you.”

“I love you too,” Mena exclaimed. Suddenly she did not want to die. She wanted to escape with Deidre and live a quiet life in the country with her.

Unfortunately, Budaludicus did not looks so impressed. Looking like he was more turned on by Deidre’s rail-thin figure and colorful sundress and make-up, he pompously declared, “Sorry my sweet country angel, but the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, even when they look as scrumptious as you.”

Budaludicus snapped his fingers, and the captain struck a match and dropped it at Straw-Woman’s feet. “Oh what a world!” she cried as the fire started below her pole. “Will I really go up in smoke?”

The captain moved over to the guillotine that loomed over Mena’s neck. He was ready to slice the rope, and Deidre cried. “No! Please! Have mercy on my sweet honey bun!”

Two more knights mounted the stage and dragged her screaming and crying from it.

“Deidre!” Mena sobbed in complete anguish.

“On your count sire,” the captain said with his blade drawn.

The sunlight and shadows illuminated the king’s face in a sinister manner. “3…” he said, and the captain raised his blade.

“Please no…” Mena cried. “Please!”

“2…”

Mena closed her eyes, deep in prayer. Would someone arrive out of her dreams and save her?

“1.”

This is it, Mena thought, as she cried on the chopping block. I died before I lived. No fabulous adventure. No steamy romance. No getting to attend a magical school…no…

Suddenly, people gasped, and the king cried, “Leaping Lettuce!”

Mena opened her eyes and in the middle of the sky, an enormous building had appeared. It was the miraculous magical castle she had seen in her dreams a few nights ago. It swooped over everyone with the same red, yellow and blue spirals and brightly colored sun, moon, planet and rainbow pillars that were so vividly illustrated in her visage.

Some people ran screaming, others stared transfixed and right when the captain was about to cut the rope, a giant cobalt anchor crashed into the stage, launching Budaludicus headfirst into a nearby puddle of mud. Standing atop the anchor was the hooded figure who had been speaking to Lol Pops earlier. Mena gasped as his robes reflected both the blue sky and the red sunset.

“What ails you?” exclaimed the captain. “How dare you interrupt and dishonor the king’s execution with this…this…dramatic entrance…of yours.”

The hooded man spoke calmly but proudly. “The arrival of cosmic fate is always dramatic, my good man.”

He hopped off the anchor and tore his whole robe off with a single swoop. Mena’s life was flashing before her eyes, but she remained clear-headed enough to realize the man who scared her in the tavern wasn’t scary looking at all—he was actually quite handsome.

He was tall with dark skin, shiny, mid-length black hair, dazzling rainbow-colored eyes with long eyelashes and a tight, white, green and purple overcoat that accentuated his thin, but toned body. The man was also wearing black heels, and in an over-the-top gesture, began to slide his feet backwards in a strange dance, before clicking his heels together and boldly pointing at Mena. “Phenomena Willow?”

Mena could not speak. Her tense body shook, and all her voice could manage was a bunch of wordless sobbing. The man continued to smile at her.

“It’s my proud honor to tell you, that you’ve been accepted into the Academy of Dream Arts, Nighdream Academy!”—the man paused with a sly look—"Or rather your mind has accepted the Academy.”

Mena’s brain felt like it would short out, from both nearly being beheaded and the dashing man who stood before her giving her a fantastic acceptance speech into the Dream Castle. The man looked at the guillotine and laughed. “Why waste rope hanging yourself? Better to die of love than to love without regret!”

“W-what?!” Mena murmured.

“Well, I guess that analogy doesn’t work since this is a guillotine,” the man laughed again, and he drew his floating robe back to him. Out of his sleeves came a blast of rainbow that sliced the guillotine in half, and it toppled over harmlessly. He quickly unfastened the ropes on Mena’s arms. A cloud popped out of his sleeve and rained on Straw-Woman before she became a bonfire.

The man looked down at Mena with his dazzling rainbow eyes, and all she could do was look up at him silent and teary eyed but eternally grateful all the same. At last, she dumbly croaked, “Are…you Roy G. Bivion?”

The man gave a casually dismissive grin. “Ha! No I’m afraid the good headmaster dwells on a higher plane now.”

“He’s dead?” Mena exclaimed.

“Nah, he permanently resides in the landscape of our dreams. I see him every Tuesday night for cards.”

But the man quickly shook his head, his eyes looking intently into Mena’s with a passionate intensity. He handed her a handkerchief, and she dabbed her tear and snot-stained face. Mena’s lungs let out a great exhale and she finally felt like she could finally speak full sentences again.

“Did you really come all this way to save me? How did you know I was in trouble?”

The mysterious man extended a friendly gloved hand towards Mena. “I didn’t. You summoned the Dream Castle all by yourself…with the cosmic power of your mind.”

Mena pointed directly at her face. “I have that power?”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about your powers on this grounded plane,” Gemini said with his rainbow eyes shining. “But come with me, and we shall go to a world of pure…imagicnation.”