Keith Hendricks
216 Railroad Avenue
Carnegie, PA 15106
412-722-5860
k4comicbook@gmail.com

Protect the Prince
(working title)
by Keith Hendricks

Protect the Prince
Chapter One 1
Chapter Two 22
Chapter Three 38
Chapter Four 64
Chapter Five 88

Chapter One

As the old wooden rocking chair squeaked, Loren leaned back into Auntie Vee, then tucked forward, jerking the creaking chair. She hoped to get the rocker racing by the time Vee started brushing, for though Vee brushed with a glacial steadiness and slowness that never pinched and barely scraped Loren's scalp, she was unsettled by Vee's bony lap and cruel but indulgent smile, and sought escape in the soothing, rhythmic sway of the rocking chair.
“Are you learning your runes?” said Auntie Vee. Though the youngest Elderlich, Vee's face was the hardest. Even her glowing smile seemed unnatural, as if cut crudely with a knife from a pumpkin. Not that Auntie Vee smiled at anyone except Loren, who came to dread the special attention of these smiles.
“I am, Auntie.”
“I’m not your Auntie." 
“I know, Auntie.” 
Though the children were to stop calling the Elderliches of The Mansion of the Shining Prince “Auntie” or "Uncle," old habits die hard.
“Instead of Auntie Vee, call me Sister if it pleases you. Would you like that?” Auntie Vee asked this every week, as if either of them was so forgetful that they needed reminding of this magnanimity.
"Not Sister Vee? What about Sister Vieno?”
“That’s too familiar, my child.”
“Are you my sister?”
“No, my child.” Auntie Vee’s smile faded. “Which rune did you learn today?”
“The one above the altar window. Kitama.” 
“Tell me about Kitama.”
“Beginnings and endings. Epic moments.”
“And what does epic mean?”
“Really big.”
“It also means the moments the Shining Prince applauds.”
“Apple odds?”
“Applauds—clapping.”
“I like to clap.”
“Is that so? Tell me more about the runes.”
Loren recited the runes she knew, and when questioned, rehearsed the catechism. When she finished, and Auntie Vee had no more questions, the brushing stopped. When the rocking stopped, Loren wanted to lean back into Auntie Vee. If she had a mother, she could lean into the warm breath of her mother; it did not have to be her real mother, who was probably dead, though the Elderliches never ansered this question, or any of their questions. They were orphans. That was all they knew, and all they would be told. 
At the smell of bread and stew and the nearby clatter of pots, Loren was about to dash to the cafeteria when Oji curled into her lap. When she rubbed the ginger kitten's ears, the cat’s purr thrummed in her legs. As Oji was still small and slight, and had a kitten’s toylike head, it was hard to think him a full-grown cat. Was it because he was an orphan, she wondered? With only Elderliches as mothers, would she be fated to be half-wild and half-grown like Oji?
“Sister Vee, when will I get a mother?”
“I’m not your sister, Loren.”
“You said I could call you sister.”
“Did I say that? I was thinking of the runes. Run along, Loren.”
	“Will I ever get a mother?”
“Loren, someday the Prince will come into his kingdom, drown the brutes, take pity on every beast, and lead the loyal and lion-hearted to victory. Don't ask for a different promise.”
“The Prince isn’t my mother.”
“No, Loren. No, he is not. Run along, Loren.”  
When Loren crossed her arms and curled her lips into a pout, Oji sprang down to sprint as fast as his little feet could go. “Oji!” she called, then dropped to the floor and followed.
It wasn’t like the kitten to run this fast. Not that Oji was lazy, but his luxurious pace fit a tabby three times his size. Only the flashlight, the remote control car—now broken--or roaches, inspired Oji to a gallop. 
Without any bug or spark scurrying ahead of him, Oji’s swiftness amped up Loren's curiosity until it was indistguishable from alarm. Spellbound by her blended wonder and concern, Loren followed the cat through the TV room--passing in front of the basketball game to the chagrin of Aito and Lucien, who, mid-cheer, pelted her with nerf balls—then the game room, and the library, where Oji jumped to the window sill and perched between the frame and the screen.
While it was not Oji's first time scampering unhinged, what was mindboggling was Oji licking his paws on the sill, the dirtiest place in the brownstone, with a dried, curled up daddy longlegs like an ancient button, a cigarette more yellowed than any page, and a tiny brown flowerpot blasted with dessicated dirt and the haggard remains of some unrecognizable plant. 
Every now and then, Oji paused mid-lick, stared through the pane, then batted at the window glare. The slanting light of sunset filled the library with the blue silhouette of the Continental Finance building. Despite the strange way of life in their old brownstone, the skyscraper was a constant reminder the city loomed all around and above. At sunrise, glints from the monolithic building's sheet windows would slice through the shutters, flood the hallways, and rouse the sleepers.
Though Berengere was her best friend, Oji slept in Loren's bed for longer than she could remember. While the Elderliches weren’t a book religion, they were happy to tell stories, such as how Oji lay with Loren as an infant, the kitten’s tail often in her mouth, sopping with drool, her nose buried in his fur. Though Oji gave them a few scares, Hanne said they had to honor the cat’s wishes that the two should be inseparable. Loren felt lucky that she hadn’t died in her crib.
So Loren was shocked when Oji scratched her wrist, twisted away to fall on his feet, then jumped back in the window. When Loren scowled, and reached for the window, the cat clawed the casement door shut.
“You stupid cat!” she exclaimed. “You’ve locked yourself out.” Even when Oji seemed to frown, his ginger markings made it seem like anxiety, and Loren giggled at the cat. “Suit yourself.”  When Oji continued his weird game by tapping the glints in the window, the girl turned on her own heel, and ran out of the room.
In the hallway she passed Chiyo, Conrad--who yelled, "don't run!"—Michel, Akachi, and Berangere, who sat by herself, mousily wrapped in the sweater she always wore even on warm days like this one. As Loren approached her friend, the others ran between them, filling the stairwell with a gray line, for they could not change their vestures until after dinner.  The gray uniforms of The Mansion of the Shining Prince were at once religious vestures and school uniforms, though as the Elderliches inspected them with the fervor of sergeants grooming their troops, Loren felt like they must also have some military significance. As Conrad was the children's self-assumed leader--their oldest boy and biggest bully, though the kind to lead not with fists but his jutting, self-assured chin and cocky swagger—he had silver epaulets on his shoulders.
“Were you with her?” Berengere asked.
“Don’t look at me like that. She makes me.”
“They know.”
	“Shh!”
“They’ll make you an Elderlich.”  
“Don’t say that, Bear.”
“You know I don’t like that.”
“It’s a big mouthful.”
“Fine, I’ll call you Lo, or not even a whole syllable. I’ll call you Luh.”
“Fine. Berengere.”
“It’s all we have left. Of our real parents. Of our lives outside The Mansion.”
“What mansion? What lives? What parents?”  
“Where do you think we came from, Loren?” 
“All you must know is you're not from Draden,” Njal wheezed. The students crunched against the stairwell to accomodate the Elderlich's lumbering bulk. "Our ways are not their ways. Remember your catechism, you beasts.” Though Njal wasn’t the eldest Elderlich, his shuddering jowls, ponderous paunch, widow's peak, and circle of white hair lent him the dignity of a Roman emperor crowned with a laurel leaf. As it didn't help that he spoke with a stately tone more sententious than paced with real gravity, sometimes the other kids called him Emperor Njal. When he called them beasts, however, that was no insult, but a term of endearment. To the Elderliches, all the Animalytes were beasts. 
In The Mansion of The Shining Prince, you started as an Animalyte, a human beast with one name, and only later earned your surname by doing a sacred deed—not only a good deed, but an auspicious deed, a sign to others—and having grasped both names, you might be inhabited by your sacreatural soul, and become a full-fledged Humanimal. The bulk of humanity died ignorant and soulless, their bodies so wrecked by wickedness that no spirit animal might dwell within, and when their bodies moldered, other beasts might rise from the dust, perhaps another human beast. 
Njal turned to peer over his glasses, his eyebrows raised so high that they seemed to defy gravity. “Even human beasts need food. Get in line.” 
Loren and Berengere joined the back of the line behind Michel and Aito, whose shoulder-length hair bobbed miming Njal's waddle. AlthoughVieno coddled her, she preferred Njal's bland grin and candor to Vieno's arch smile, which was cut as steep as a V, and like a mask, hid more than it expressed. Though Aito was never her favorite person, she could not bear to look at the boy, and when she turned her back, Berengere turned with her so that they remained facing. 
When Berangere frowned, her nose wrinkled. “What’s going on, Loren?”
“Nothing. It’s a strange day. Auntie Vee said very little, and Oji acted strange.”
“Cats are strange. They act as they please.”
“He locked himself in the window.”
“That is strange. Aren't you going to ask me about my day?”
“Was your day strange, Berangere?”
“After Worlds and Ethics, Hamund took a few of us to the grocery store.” 
While Ethics was, like it sounded, the study of Good and Evil, Worlds dealt not with astronomy, nor the faroff warring countries of CNN, but the study of worlds that, as far as Loren knew, were fictional. Not that these places were the settings of library books, like Middle Earth, Narnia, or Ultima, nor were they modeled off of mythic or religious realms, like Heaven, Hell, Asgard, Alfheim, Olympus, Hades, or Atlantis; nor were they the planets of television, like Romulus or Skaro. These new horizons seemed to exist solely to dress up lessons from Ethics and the world outside their doors. The World names were so unreal that when she left class, she forgot all but one, the magnet that attracted all their allusions and allegories, Alsantia.
That morning, Hamund told the Alsantian tale of The Two Brothers: when Brother Dove proposed to strive in brotherhood against the famine afflicting the land, Brother Wolf nodded and ate his brother that one might survive. But when winter came, Brother Wolf could no longer find his way to to the summer valley without the guidance of Brother Dove, and froze to death.
Like most tales in Worlds class, it contained a lesson of friendship, which seemed to be the central doctrine of the Elderliches. More than a moral lesson, it was dogma that restricted them from wandering the halls alone. Though it was practical to have a friend in The Mansion, the Elderliches made it law, and commanded that their Animalytes walk by twos. 
Berangere and Loren were friends long before understanding this. Her earliest memory was of Berangere reading Pinocchio to her, and her friend was such a good reader that Loren pieced the story together despite only knowing every other word. They were, at most, three years old. As Berangere was still a better reader, and better at math and Ethics, she could not have picked a better friend. She would still be lost if she befriended Conrad, Chiyo or Michel. Not that she understood half of her life in The Mansion, but for the half lived outside of the cloud of ignorance that engulfed the others, she had Berangere to thank. It was like her head was half-wood, and Berangere the cricket that helped her day by day in the whale. 
“At checkout, he bought me licorice,” continued Berangere.
“That is strange.”
“But I asked for chocolate.”
“That’s more like Hamund.”
“That’s any Elderlich. Has an Elderlich ever given you what you want?”
“Right now, I want lunch. I’m starving.”
“That’s one thing we don’t know, Loren—though the Elderliches keep us in the dark, we have never known real hunger, not like you see on TV.”
“So you don't want to leave?”
“That’s crazy talk. Where would we go? I don’t know anything about my family. Do you?”
“I asked Auntie Vee if I’ll ever get a mother.”
“You'd leave me here? What would I do?” 
“You’d come with me.”
“It doesn’t work like that, Loren. And anyway, I doubt the adoption agencies know about us.” 
“Of course they do!”
“Maybe you’re right.” Berangere didn’t sound convincing. “What did she say?”
When Hanne propped open the door, the Animalytes entered two by two, took their trays from the counter, and headed for the dining table. Salt grains glittered in the cracked stone table top. 
Loren and Berangere were the last to grab their trays. Elderlich Hanne’s stinting eye—assisted by a modest measuring cup--served neat, equal helpings, except to the last, who received the remainder, which every now and then was a pittance, but more often than not was a sizable windfall. Today was not one of those days.
Berangere stared mournfully at stray fish sticks and fries, clumped with fry fragments and the debris of dry breading."That's not a meal. That's rubble."
“Oh, Berangere, I’m sorry.”
“Sometimes Brother Wolf gets you,” Berangere waxed philosophically.
“Here. Have mine." Before she could say anything, Loren scooped half of her dinner on Berangere’s plate.
“I’ll never eat all of this, Loren.” 
As the facing seats were taken, they sat at the table's far end side by side. The ketchup bottles were bone dry, which Loren only accepted after a dozen squeezes that produced only wheezes, puffs of ketchup scent, and longing for ketchup.
“What did she say?”
“Who?”
“You know who.”
“She asked me about runes and told me she’s not my Auntie.”
 As Berangere returned the extra fries and sticks one by one to Loren’s plate, Loren continued her story around a mouthful so dry and crumbly that the half-chewed fries sucked the vowels from her mouth. “Thn sh sd th prnc wld rtrn.”
“Do you wonder what the prince looks like?”
“No.”
“On the way home, we passed St. Vincent’s Cathedral, which had in its stained glass window an image of a man with nails in his wrist. When Njall said it was their prince, I asked what the Shining Prince looked like, and he said one day we'll behold him.” Though Berangere was not eating, when Loren reached onto her friend’s plate, the other girl pushed her hand away. “I don’t talk and eat at the same time, Loren."
“Don’t talk, then. Eat.”
“Fine.”
“You’re so grumpy.”
	“I’m thinking.” 
“No one sits with us because you’re always thinking, Berangere. If you didn't think so much, we’d have more friends.”
“Not think, Loren? When we'll live our whole lives and die in The Mansion of the Shining Prince? I need a little space to be myself.”
“Aren't you happy here?”
“There’s a world out there, Loren.”
“But their ways are not our ways, and their life is not our life.” Loren quoted a favorite verse of the Elderliches.
“Unless their ways are evil, who cares? At least they have a life. Here we share one life, which we live in common, and not only dress the same, but learn how to think, feel, and live the same."  
"Isn't that natural, though? Animals don't strive to be different."
"Is this a religion or a herd? Loren, isn’t it peculiar that so many should think, feel, and say the same things? If you and I thought the same, we’d have no reason to be friends.”
“Isn't thinking something in common what makes people friends?"
“If you think that, be friends with Conrad. He believes the Elderliches without question.”
“I can’t stand Conrad.”
“Neither can I, but he’s what you mean--the one that thinks the same think that the Elderliches think. If friendship is shaping our minds and feelings around what we’re told to believe, then I'm not your friend--Conrad is."
“We’ll always be friends, Berangere. You're hurting my feelings.”
“I’m just making a point,” scowled Berangere. “I’d smack you if you hung around Conrad. I couldn’t do without your cutesy worldview.”
“Aww. You think my worldview is cutesy?”
“No. Yes. Don’t “aww” me.” 
Having already finished, the others scraped their trays into the trash, then jostled each other dashing upstairs. They ran as if there was a prize, for once in their quarters, they could remove their stuffy vestures and wear comfortable bedclothes. 
On realizing they were the last ones in the dining room, Loren and Berangere smacked their trays on the trash can, dropped them in the wash bin, and turned to run, pretending not to hear Hanne, who liked to make stragglers take out trash and dry dishes. When Njal shouted after them, they half-turned and sidled down the stairs.
“Take out the trash, you beasts,” he said.
Since trash day was tomorrow, the alley was redolent with potato skins, fruit rinds, the briny odor of emptied canned vegetables, and the rank smell of rot and mold; moreover, the trash was piled so high from The Mansion and the restaurants that served the Continental Financial Building that there was a constant tinkling and scurrying came from the trash, as if the plastic bags were the skin of something half-alive.
After they piled trash bags on the towering heap, Berangere pointed into the alleyway, where Oji stood motionless, aside for the twitch of his whiskers and the snake of his tail.
Though the cat was the image of Oji, Loren now wondered if this aloof ginger was a different animal, or if Oji turned a new page overnight, finding on the flip side a properly feline soul. She wished that he would turn back, because she did not care for this alley cat, and missed her pet and friend. 
When Oji padded towards Castle Street, Loren called: “You snotty cat! Come back here!”
Hanne stepped into the alley gripping a pan like a tennis racket. “Come inside, you beasts.” When they complied, Hanne locked the kitchen door. "Why were you shouting?"
“Oji won’t come inside.”
“You were shouting at Oji?” Hanne’s brow furrowed, as if she disapproved of the idea.
“So what. He’s my cat!”
“Oji is not your cat,” said Hanne. “It’s commendable to take responsibility for him, but he's a cat. While duty and love keep you in your place, Oji is only here because it suits him.”
“My place? It's Oji’s place, too.”
“In Alsantia, a beast’s abode is wherever it lays its head, and even in this world, a cat’s domain is vast.” 
“Why bring up Alsantia?” asked Berangere. “There is no Alsantia outside of class.”
Njall snorted. "While it's bad enough to doubt your teachers, you  may as well say there is no here or there if you doubt our teachings. Go to bed, you beasts."
Afraid the Elderlich might change his mind, they barged past him into the hallway, then the stairwell, then up three flights, not stopping until their breathless hurtle into their room, where Akachi was under her covers reading Oliver Twist, and Michel and Chiyo played Scrabble. 
As no one had yet complained, the girls had gradually commandeered the library’s small selection of board games, which also included Sorry, Monopoly, Clue, and Settlers of Catan. Every time Chiyo tried to add Risk to their collection, Berangere hid it in a different room, and Loren was glad it was still not in their stack.
Berangere sat on the edge of her bed. “Since we’re never going to see Alsantia, Loren, we have to see this world.”
“How? I’ve only been outside a handful of times. I don’t think I’m allowed to leave.” Though the Elderliches did take Animalytes on errands, Loren was rarely asked.
“Next time Njall takes me shopping, I’ll ask him to bring you too.”
“This is my home, Bear. What about Auntie Vee?”
“She’s not your Aunt. And I’m not a bear.”
“I’m sorry,” yawed Loren. “I’m very sleepy.”
“Don’t you want to read?”
“You read. Why not watch them play Scrabble? That’s like reading.”
“I doubt I’ll learn a new word watching those two play.”
“Good night, Berangere.” 
Loren laid her head on the pillow and pulled up her sheets. Though she normally drifted into sleep without questioning their teachings or way of life, what Hanne and Njall said about Oji led to uncomfortable lines of reasoning, until falling sleep was as likely as falling into Alsantia. Moreover, without Oji purring beside her while Berangere read, Loren tossed and turned. Letting Bear read the final chapter of The Scarlet Pimpernel might have helped, but it did not seem right to finish the book without Oji, who was there for the other chapters—wouldn’t he want to know how it ended? 
Idly, Loren wondered if Baroness Orc wrote other books, maybe about real orcs from Alsantia, but though she woolgathered a story of a dashing orc duelist who defied snotty elven kings, she still couldn’t fall asleep. 
Loren pulled the blanket over her head, and touching her thumbs and forefingers together, made a squat isosceles triangle. When her fingertips connected, a black space sparking with starlight flickered into existence. She could now make the other places appear without willing it, by simply making this tent of her forefingers and thumbs.“Show me Oji.” The image of night sky brightened to blue and purple from mingling clouds, stars, moon, and lamp posts. 
	Though she had not visited many places in Draden, when Chiyo and Conrad boasted of a day in this park, it made her wistful to see its picnic tables and playgrounds, and she had stolen a glimpse many times with her gift. It was a magical place at night, lonely but inhabited by swingsets and oak trees, which now creaked and shivered in the breeze. Though there were no people, it was not quite derelict, for there was Oji, his ginger coat nearly blood red in the violet lamplight, his ears perked, and his tail stiffened as he rocked on the balls of his paws. Another catlike creature, skulking lower than Oji's ruffled headquarters, scurried closer and bared its bloody teeth, its ears seeming to stab towards the cat. As they clenched and rolled, Oji's mouth and claws reddened, and Loren awoke.	Having nodded off, Loren did not know which part of the vision was fear, and which was truth glimpsed by power. 
	What she did know was that she was ravenously hungry, and even more overwhelming than the hunger was the consuming thought that the cat flap was blocked, and Oji lay outside in a pool of blood.
“Bear!” Loren hissed. The other girl had fallen asleep holding The Scarlet Pimpernel. “Bear!”
“What, Loren? I didn’t read ahead. Go to sleep.”
“Oji was in a fight.” Loren slid on her socks, then her shoes.
“You were dreaming.”
“Maybe.”
“Were you seeing again? When you get caught, they’ll make you an Elderlich.”
“We’ll talk about that later. We have to help Oji.”
After Berangere put on her shoes, Loren opened the door, and the hall light fell on Akachi.
	"Shut it!"
“Sorry,” said Loren. 
“Go to sleep, Akachi,” said Berangere.
“What are you doing?”
Berangere looked at Loren, who shrugged and smiled. There was no reason to lie, not when half the truth was innocent. “Getting a snack, Akachi.”
“Wait for me!” hissed Akachi.
“We’ll wait in the kitchen,” said Berangere, then pulled Loren through the door and down the hall, where she whispered, “the fewer that know your secret, the better."
 Though the stairwells had lasted two centuries, even the best made stairs creak, and though the girls shuffled downstairs cautiously, when their sneaking squeaked here and there, Loren couldn’t help looking over her shoulder for Elderliches that never came.
“We only have a few minutes before Akachi gets to the kitchen,” said Berangere.
The street light filtering through the windows of the dark foyer shadowed a brown box propped in front of the cat flap. On the other side of the door was the faintest scratching sound. While another animal might claw and yowl, this beast was unruffled and persistent in its dogged scratching. Though the box was not large, it took both girls to slide it. When Oji trotted through the cat flap with an unbroken ginger coat, Loren wondered if her vision was a dream after all, until she saw the ear wet from blood.
“What’s that!” Berangere pointed. When the skulking, smirking beast from her vision poked its head through the flap, Oji pounced and batted its nose, and Loren heaved the box back to the cat flap.
“Those weren’t cat’s paws,” said Berangere, "and it was grinning.”
“It wasn’t a dream,” said Loren. “I saw it too.”
At the sound of a motor, and headlights piercing the windows, Oji scampered up the stairs, and Loren ran past them, toward the kitchen.
“Loren!” hissed Berangere. 
Seeing Berengere already halfway up the stairs, Loren said, “I’m hungry. And Akachi might be caught.” Berangere reluctantly followed Loren to the kitchen, where they heard squeaking cabinet doors, scuffling feet, and giggling. Listening at the door, they heard Conrad's crackling boom, for he in the midst of a puberty that swelled not only his body to an ungainly height well beyond his maturity to contain, but his head as well—and when they stepped in, it frightened the other children. All the other children, for all the girls and all the boys milled around, skimming the kitchen for snacks. 
“Akachi!” snipped Berangere. 
“I didn’t want to come alone, so I brought Chiyo. She brought Conrad. Conrad brought everybody.”
Conrad grumbled, "I should have stayed in bed. There’s nothing good.”
“Look at these!” squealed Aito.
“Those are Gluten Free Granola Bars,” scoffed Conrad. “No matter how much we want them to be cookies.”
“I want one!” blurted Loren.
“Me too!” said Berangere. Before five seconds passed, the Gluten Free Granola Bars were gone, filling mouths with the mealy, semi-sweet taste of oatmeal, raisins, and the barest scrimp of brown sugar. Everyone’s mouth except Conrad’s, for in disdaining the Gluten Free Granola Bars, he was not spared one, and the extra was chewed by Loren before he could protest.
“Hey! Where’s mine!” said Conrad.
“You don’t want any Gluten Free Granola Bars,” said Loren. 
“They’re not good enough for Conrad,” teased Chiyo.
“Then where’s my treat?”
“Here’s an apple,” offered Aito.
“I don’t want a crummy apple,” said Conrad.
“Apples aren’t crummy,” said Loren. “Gluten Free Granola Bars are crummy, though, and almost yummy.”
“Are you rubbing it in?” said Conrad.
“Look, Conrad--cold soup,” said Berengere.
“Soup isn’t a snack!” he  hissed.
“Next time, Conrad,” said Akachi.
“I’m hungry now! It’s Loren’s fault! She had two!” He loomed over Loren, a raging expression clouding his face, and though Loren was half certain nothing would come of his anger, it was a frightful sight. When he advanced a step, her half-certainty became one quarter certainty, than one eighth, than the merest sliver of certainty, for Conrad was one hundred percent bully, and her meager powers, whether an Elderlich inheritance or not, could not offset this much Conrad. If there was a little less Conrad, she might use her own might, or trust to Berangere's help, for they were not weak girls for all their bookishness. Their strength, however, was the by-product of horseplay, while Conrad seemed the by-product of a more serious horse. 
All this said, Loren could not help herself. “Aww,” she said, “do you want a cookie?” She said it with a patronizing tone, as if baiting a puppy with a dog biscuit, and Conrad glared and advanced the last inch, so that her face bumped his ribs.
“Yes, Loren,” he seethed. “I want a cookie!”
“If you stand back, I’ll get you a cookie.”
“There are cookies?” said Aito, and without waiting for an answer, started flipping over cupboards.
	“No, Loren,” warned Berangere.
“Why not?” said Loren. “If you get your way, we won’t keep the secret much longer.” 	
When Conrad reluctantly stepped back, Loren backpedaled another step, then templed her forefingers and thumbs. This time, instead of another vista, shadowy flames fluttered in the gap, and from the sweet, savory--and sulfurish--aroma, a cookie formed, floating as if it rested on the tray of an invisible Easy Bake Oven. 
“You grab it,” Loren said. “I don’t want to burn my fingers. It’s your cookie.”
“What are you doing?” Conrad backed away with a horrified grimace, his eyes wide and his eyebrows so high they might snap, fall to the floor, and shatter.
“Just take the cookie, Conrad.” 
Gingerly, Conrad reached forward to pinch the cookie hovering between her fingers, and on drawing it back, tossed it between his hands. "It's hot!" 
“It’s warm,” he said.
“Chocolate chip. Your favorite, right?”
“What’s that smell?” said Aito.
“Where did this come from?” said Conrad.
“Just eat the cookie, Conrad.”  Though Loren’s fingers weren’t even warm, she blew on them by instinct, and they smelled like cookies...and brimstone.
When Conrad looked at the quizzical faces, they looked back, not only wondering if he was going to eat the toothsome cookie, but a little jealous, for this was no Gluten Free Granola Bar, but a gourmet cookie the size of a burger, with chips bigger than grapes, which would have tempted any cookie lover who hadn't seen its infernal pedigree.
Putting on his brave face, Conrad munched the brimstone cookie. He chewed for a long time, then swallowed. “It’s good,” he said, then frowned, a dizzy expression on his face. “It has a weird aftertaste. Like barbecue, but stronger.” 
When the front door banged on the heavy box, Conrad wolfed down his cookie, Aito closed the cupboards, and Akachi was the first to dash upstairs. Before Loren knew it, only she and Berangere remained in the kitchen. They reached the stairwell door just as Conrad slammed it shut, and when they tried the handle, it didn’t budge.
As footsteps approached, Loren pushed Berangere into the library and stood fast in front of the door.
“Who are you?” The growl of challenge was so muffled that Loren did not know if it was a man or a woman. Moreover, the figure was cloaked in a heavy outpouring of the spectral shadows that dwelled in her finger and thumb temple. When it turned away from Loren, she stepped forward and recognized Elderlich vestments, and what looked like the flicker of a sleek tail curling under the hem. 
Not only did Loren think the tail was real, she was certain it was the ‘tail-end’ of a transformation. Was this the fox from her vision? The figure turned.
It was Auntie Vee. 
“Why are you out of bed, Loren?”
“I was hungry.”
“Go back to bed.”
“The stairwell’s jammed.”
Auntie Vee jostled the door handle and sprang the door. “There you are.”
“Can I have a snack?” Loren glimpsed Berangere peeking through the crack of the library door.
“It isn’t good to feed the appetites of young beasts,” said Auntie Vee. “Breakfast will be here soon enough.”
“Please, Auntie Vee?”
“I’m not your Aunt, Loren.”  When Vieno sighed and opened the kitchen door, Loren waved at Berangere, and the other girl tiptoed to the stairwell. 
“You'll get nothing sweet, but I suppose a bowl of soup won’t spoil such a good-natured beast.” From a container in the refrigerator, Vieno ladled soup into a bowl, microwaved it until it was lukewarm, and handed it to Loren. When Auntie Vee leaned against the cabinets, Loren gathered that she was to eat it standing up. 
“Who ate my granola?”
At Auntie Vee's glare, Loren stopped her mouth with a spoonful of soup. "Mmm. This is good." Since she was full and the soup soured the semi-sweet aftertaste of the granola bar, Loren took a few more bites for show. “Thank you, Auntie Vee. I’m ready.” 
Auntie Vee seemed to bite back the expected retort, then said, “good night, Loren.” A smile surfaced, unlike the reluctant smiles bestowed on Loren in the rocking chair; not poured grudgingly from the Elderlich's private stock of crafted smiles, it bubbled up from a natural reservoir of affection. It was like Auntie Vee had smiled at Loren for the first time.
Wanting to try bowing like an Elderlich,  Loren pressed her fingertips to her brow, and dipped into a shallow curtsy. Then she ran from the kitchen, shoved through the door, and hurtled to the girls’ room so pell-mell  that the air-flow on her pumping arms felt like flying.
Berangere was asleep. When Loren closed The Scarlet Pimpernel and switched off the flashlight, Berangere pulled her sheets to her chin, and her eyes fluttered, but she did not awake. Loren then fluffed her pillow and slipped in bed facing her friend. She dearly wanted to tell Berangere. Had she imagined the tail and the smoky fire of the magic place in the dim twilight of the hallway? Was it Auntie Vee fighting Oji in her dream and switping at the cat flap?No, she couldn’t have been, unless someone else drove the car.
Again too tired to see the border of dreams, Loren's paws crossed over the dark green of the night grass, where she sniffed at the torn park grounds, then followed the scent under a sliding board, across a baseball diamond, through a bush, and into the deep woods. Draden dissolved into the yawning gully and the sloping mountain. She padded down the pebbled trail to a stream, where another fox turned from washing its paws, dipped its head, and said, “did you find the prince, my lady?”
When Loren awoke to her heart pounding, Berangere’s eyelids also snapped open, and then she drew back with a start, nearly falling to the floor. “Your eyes! They’re golden!”  
When Loren looked in the mirror, they were their normal hazel. “Was it a nightmare, Berangere?” 
“I know what I saw.”
“I had a dream too. I was a fox. And I met a talking fox!”
“It was no dream. Your eyes changed.”
“Maybe I’m becoming a true beast. Maybe this will happen to all us beasts.”
“You’re becoming an Elderlich, Loren.”
That thought chilled Loren more than fighting animals or a talking fox. “If we go, Berangere...will you stay with me forever?”
Berangere did not say anything right away. “Promise not to eat me.”
“Berangere!” Loren giggled. 
“I’m serious.”
“I promise.”
“Then yes, but don't wake me up for your next nightmare.”
“Berangere, let’s go to Alsantia.”
“I’m game. Ask the fox how to get there. Good night.”
This time, Loren dreamed her own dreams, dreams of rocking chairs, nerf balls, granola, cookies, soup, books, and Berangere, until Baroness Orc rode through with Auntie Vee’s face, pursued by a Scarlet Pimpernel with the fox’s, and both had dashing tails.

Chapter Two

After pushing the beds together for a battlefield, the boys drafted their faded brown pillows for hills and their shoes for fortifications and artillery, then camouflaged the plastic soldiers in the coarse green blankets.
“Conrad, aren’t you playing?” said Lucien.
“That’s not a real game. Let's play Risk.”
“I told you. It’s not there.”
“You didn’t even look.”
“I looked after breakfast.” 
As it was Saturday, the boys were left to their own devices, and after breakfast could read, play, or study, so long as they steered clear of the Holy Foyer. Their worship room was called The Holy Foyer bcause the Elderliches said it was the entrance to the True World of Alsantia. Four pews flanked either side of the aisle which led to the altar and a stained glass window in three columns of panes—four, six, and four—depicting the life of The Shining Prince.
When worship was boring, Lucien kept himself awake by picking a new path through the window panes. Not only did each series make sense, but the story could divert to icons hung on pillars and the smaller windows in the embrasures. While each holy image guided the eye to the stained glass window, and in turn directed the viewer to the altar, there was no right order. It was a Choose Your Own Adventure with one ending.
Although the Holy Foyers fascinated Lucien, he was glad for this break from serving The Shining Prince. Not that Lucien was a non-believer; in fact, he was persuaded the parables in Worlds class were plausible, and respectful of the wisdom of the Elderliches. Just as it is easy to live bewildered by or numb to life's mysteries, it was only a little harder for Lucien to grasp an additional mystery, and in the contradiction, find peace of mind.
“There are plenty of soldiers, Conrad."
Conrad pulled jeans on, then shoes.
“Where are you going?” Aito asked.
“Outside.”
“They won’t let you.”
“I’m almost grown up. If they don’t have an errand for me to run, they can’t stop me from bouncing a ball.”
“Sure they can,” said Lucien. “Are you that much older than the last time they said no?”
“Much older,” said Conrad. “Old enough to tell you not to hang around Loren.”
“Why?” said Aito.
“Yeah,” said Lucien. “Who do you think you are? My Elderlich?”
“As long as we’re sharing a room, I’m your keeper.”
“You’re not my keeper,” scoffed Lucien. “You’re still a beast yourself.”
“Don’t associate with Loren,” said Conrad. “I mean it.”
Lucien scowled but said nothing; he only picked up a plastic soldier and pointed it at Conrad. “Pew pew pew.” Having already turned his back to step through the door, the older boy did not see his make-believe assassination.
“Is he gone?” asked Aito.
When Lucien sprang from the bed to shut the door, Aito swept the soldiers to the floor, then stooped to reach under his bed. With its split sides and burst corners, the Risk box was fragmenting, and in Aito’s rush to unfold the board, pieces spilled from the crushed cardboard to flick across the blankets.
They played without conversation until Lucien had slightly less than half the board but the strategic advantage of Australia, when Aito’s rumbling stomach echoed Lucien's sudden craving for tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. 
“What time is it?” said Aito.
“Lunch,” said Lucien. 
“Let’s go. I’m starving.” 
“Do you concede?” said Lucien.
“No! Let’s leave the board.”
“I won’t want to play later."
“But Conrad might see it,” said Aito.
“I like the way you think,” said Lucien. By leaving the played board on the bed, they sent the message that Conrad wasn’t the boss of them, their pastimes, or their friends.
After changing their pajamas for vestures and shoes, they walked the lonely halls to the stairwell, which smelled faintly of roasting potatoes and a simmering pot of something herbed, salty, and savory. 
“I miss meat,” said Aito.
“You don’t even remember meat,” said Lucien.
“I do too. I was older than you were when they took me.”
“That’s what you say, but you were always here.”
“I’m a year older, Lucien.” 
Perhaps because Lucien stood nearly a foot taller, Aito liked to remind Lucien of that fact. 
“I remember my first day,” continued Aito. 
“You said 'I'm so glad to see you,' like we were long lost friends.”
Not remembering their first meeting, Lucien could only take Aito at face value. Though Lucien's unusually crisp memory could recall how many french fries he ate a week ago, a mist obscured everything before the age of five, as if he was freshly minted at that age instead of born the usual way. Though Aito claimed their friendship started two years earlier, when Lucien was not yet quite three, as far as Lucien was concerned, he was always friends with Aito. His earliest memory was a day in the library with Aito, when they played Risk and Monopoly, or rather, the short variation of them that they could put together at the age of five, creating not their own house rules, but funhouse rules, which put the pieces through entirely new paces. Although Lucien remembered the thimble leading a green army out of South America and Africa to conquer the dog's orange army in North America and Europe, he was fuzzy on who was who; there might have been four players at the table, though he only remembered Aito.
	While lunch had no meat, it had “chik’n," as in “chik’n casserole,” roasted potatoes, and mushroom gravy. Having never had meat—at least, as far as he recollected—Lucien did not mind “chik’n”. When Aito called it fake meat, that seemed more dishonest than the 'chik'n,' for the Elderliches weren't intending to put one over on the Animalytes by serving it, but only to nourish them. If they called it not “chik’n,” but chicken, and let the children believe they ate flesh when they were not, that would be fake meat, but clearly labeling it made it not a dishonest fake, but an honest imitation. That said, Lucien had such an honest dislike for mushrooms that he could not fake his way through lunch. Both casserole and gravy were swarming with mushrooms, as if an entire can of the rubbery bits was emptied in both dishes. After sitting down across from Loren and Berangere—the last two left at lunch—Lucien mournfully picked out the mushrooms like so many pebbles from his casserole, then fished them out of the gravy with his fork.
	“You got all the mushrooms, Lucien,” smirked Loren.  
	“Oji got meat.” Aito pointed to the ginger kitten, who lay curled up on the table next to a small bowl reeking of fish. 
	“Usually we’re the last ones in line,” said Berangere, looking at Lucien’s casserole heap. “I’m glad I didn’t get that plate.”
	“We were playing Risk.”
	Berangere looked annoyed, then smiled. “Keep it. Chiyo is a horrible sport and it’s no fun to play Risk with her at all.”
	“We left it on the bed. Conrad might have already seen it.” Outside of the boys' and girls' rooms, Conrad and Chiyo were inseparable.
	“He wasn’t at lunch,” said Loren.
	“Then there’s still time to hide it,” said Berangere.
	Hanne exited the kitchen, removed her apron, and hung it on a chair.  “Berangere. Do you want to go to the store?” Njal followed her into the dining room.
	“Can Loren come?” 
	Hanne looked at Njal, then Loren. “Do you want to go?”
	“Can I?” Loren looked hopeful.
	“Though there’s room in the car, and an extra set of hands is always useful, Vieno wouldn't like it. Can you keep a secret?”
	Njal added, “it's just to the store and back.”
	“Can we go?” said Aito.
	“There is only room for two, boys,” said Hanne. “When you're finished, turn off the lights and close the door.” She emphasized the last command, as if shutting the door on further appeals to expand their shopping expedition. “Don't be here when we come back—and don't pilfer any granola bars.“
	At the mension of their nocturnal raid, the others avoided Hanne's eyes, but Lucien couldn't help looking up. Her thick eyebrows knit into an amused but stern smile and he looked away.
	When Njal swung the door behind them, it did not stick, and as it swayed to a one inch view of trash bags heaped in the alley, a trickling odor tainted the savory smell of Hanne's cooking.
	Lucien froze with his hand on the metal door. “Aito,” he hissed.
	“What?” Aito's loudness prompted Lucien to hold his finger to his lips, then wave the other boy over to the door, where they peered through the crack. When Aito jolted and pulled away, Lucien held him fast.
	“Shh,” Lucien hissed again.
	There were too many to count, unless Lucien counted them at leisure by memory.  While the horde of rats might have been thought a swarm if they milled about, climbed over each others' backs, and gnashed and chittered, the vermin sat on their haunches tranquilly like an attentive congregation. They resembled a swarm in only one respect--unless Lucien counted them at leisure by memory, there were too many to count. Though they were unruffled creatures, their tails and whiskers twitched, and they shifted in the alley seats as they whispered to each other.
 	Yes, they whispered; not only did their leader, who was twice as tall as his rodent minions, incline his nose skyward in a hoarse whisper, but the massed rats rustled as well, with nods and low chitters of agreement. That the vermin assembled so diplomatically when a feast of refuse leaned against the alley was a terrifying testimony to their ill will and fell intent, but the whispers were out of a nightmare.
	“Those can’t be rats." Though Aito lowered his voice, it wasn't low enough, and the mass of rat heads flicked towards them, their eyes glinting, then surged at the cracked door with jaws thrown wide, which looked in that frightened moment as unhinged as boa constrictors'. Aito and Lucien slammed the door shut, but not before six rats poured inside, and two more were pinched in two between the jamb and the edge.  
	Scurrying to their table, the rats jumped on the bench, leaped onto the table top, 
rattled plates still piled with food, then dove at the ginger cat. 
	Aito shouted "Oji!" 
	When the cat’s eyes flicked open, he sprang to the next table, turning as he landed on his haunches. Though the rats pounced after him, chirruping with rage, they fell short, landing on the bench, and as they scrambled to the table top, Oji batted them to the floor, then bounded down to crush one under his paws.
	“Get help,” shouted Aito, then seized a broom to scatter two of the rats like dust-mice; for a moment, the cat and the boy seemed to fight back to back, as if they often faced this common enemy as trusted allies. When Aito pinned one with the brush end of the broom, and Oji snagged its belly with his claws and yanked, unreeling the rat’s insides across the floor, Lucien ran through the door.
	When they were allowed to watch TV—usually on Saturday and Sunday evenings—rats meant to call the exterminator. Though the library had a battered Yellow Pages, it was so old that its yellow pages were even yellower, and even if the numbers were good, where would Lucien get a phone? While Vieno and Njal had cell phones, they squirreled them away in their vestments, and if The Mansion of the Shining Prince  had an old-styled phone with a loopy cord, like the antiques on AMC and Nick at Nite, he did not know where it was.
	He raced through the halls to the library, where the phone book was used as a doorstop, and after ripping out the Exterminator pages, he darted back as the door clattered behind him. Conrad, climbing up the stairs, gave a start as Lucien ran past and rattled the locked door of the Elderlich’s office.
	“Shh! They don’t know I left,” said Conrad.
	“Rats!” yelled Lucien, full in his face, then jumped back in the library,  where less from strength than the freak vigor of excitement, jimmied the window until its lock snapped, then stepped onto the fire escape. The air crackled as he stepped through the window. Sprinkles of rain beaded on the black metal and wet his socks as he pounded down the metal stairs, then dashed down the alley, dodging the puddles until the gushing rain slicked the alley and soaked his feet, when he started plowing through them with huge splashes.
	“Lucien!” Conrad called from the window.
	“Rats!” Lucien screamed back, then turned the corner. 
	Though it was raining, the sidewalks were bustling, and though their raincoats, umbrellas, and ponchos were wetter than he was, all the people stared at Lucien. He was not only shoeless, his sodden socks squirted water with his every sloshy step, and he was wearing his vestments. Though the robes weren’t pure white on the best of days--Lucien spilled more than most kids, and only used utensils when he couldn’t translate a meal into finger food—contrasted to the dark clouds, the dreary alley, and the somber suits and uniforms of passing workers, Lucien seemed to glow.
	Though it was the loudest building in sight, with four vehicles gassing at the pumps, 
another three parked at the front spaces, and both registers backed up with long lines, Lucien chose the convenience store to make the call.
	Lucien jumped at the flutter of the automatic doors, then started again at the beep beep of the security system, a sound he knew only from TV, and when he turned in surprise, he jostled a brutish woman that looked like she might have hungrily stalked Hansel and Gretel to Draden. At their shuddering impact, the front of her flowery dress took the shape of a watery blot, though Lucien felt no drier from the transfer of the rain. “Don’t just stand there!” she roared. When he shivered for the fourth time, she seemed to take stock of Lucien. “What are you wearing? Where’s your mother?” 
	“I’m sorry,” stammered Lucien. “I’m an orphan. I live at The Mansion.”
	The irate old woman glowered at Lucien. “What orphan lives in a mansion? I hope your name’s Warbucks. This dress wasn’t cheap.” 
	Having watched a few versions of Annie, Lucien laughed weakly at the joke. “I have no money. It’s just water. Won’t it dry?” Not that Lucien was getting any drier, though the rain drained down his vestments and through his socks to puddle on the floor.
	“Hey!” shouted a cashier, “no shoes, no service.”
“I’m sorry,” said Lucien. “Can I use your phone?” 
“You’re not using my cell,” said the cashier. “I’ve been burned by that one before.”
“There’s that landline in the back,” said the other cashier.
“He’s not using that, either.”
“Please,” said Lucien. “There are rats in the alley. I need to call an exterminator.”
At this announcement, the line thinned immediately, as some put back their purchases, others dropped them in visible disgust, and many asked for the number to “corporate.” Amid this tumult of complaints, Lucien darted through the back room door, past stacks of cardboard boxes, and into a small office, which had a clunky cordless as large as a dumbbell.
As the ruder of the two cashiers headed for the office, Lucien closed and locked the door. “Hey, kid! Let me in! I have to call my manager!”
When Lucien unrolled the phone book pages, the edges were pasty from rain, and the middle was blurred where he clenched the yellow pages, but there were still over a dozen numbers to call. Though the first four played beeps and disconnection messages, and the fifth was a gruff “wrong number” followed by a hang up, the sixth rang four times, then was answered with“Ratzappers, we kill critters! How can I help you?” Not only was the company name promising, but the agent sounded perfectly gleeful, as if she waited for Lucien's call all day.
“Rats are in our kitchen.”
“Okay! We can help. Is this QwiKafe?”
“Yes, but I ran here. The rats are in The Mansion of the Shining Prince.”
“Which prince?”
“No, The Mansion of the Shining Prince. It’s a church.”
“Ohhhh...” The voice faded until the receiver felt not only silent, but lifeless. Lucien first thought she hung up, put him on hold, or muted him, but the absence of all noise, not only her voice, but music, tones, and static, made him wonder if he had only imagined their conversation, as if he pretended to hear a friendly voice in a toy phone. One second he held a voiceless lump of inert plastic, and the next, he heard the faint strum of a harp, then a new voice.
“Did you say your name is Lucien?” rasped the scratchy voice. His thick accent hugged the Ds, Ns, and M for longer, as if savoring their taste. Not only did the accent seem familiar, but when the harp became agitated, his heart hammered, as if there was something to fear. 
“No. I mean my name is Lucien, but I don’t remember saying so.” Lucien stammered. “Who is this?”
“She already said--Ratzappers.” Where she had emphasized RAT, he stressed ZAPP-ers. “We’ll be there in four hours.”
“Hours?” said Lucien in stunned disbelief.
“This isn’t the moving pictures.” This archaic phrase only increased Lucien’s uneasiness, for who called movies moving pictures anymore?  “Thank you for calling Rat-ZAPPers.”
Not that this was the time or place, he told himself, but he should stop lying to himself; The Mansion of the Shining Prince wasn't a mansion or a church, it was a cult.  
Lucien turned to the office windows.The cashier paced back and forth while talking on his cell phone. When the cashier reached the leftwards point of his pacing foot path, Lucien opened the door, dashed past the box piles, and barged into the convenience store, which had no sign of its former mob of customers other than the smeared boot prints on the mudstained floor.  
Lucien did not stop until the brownstone front steps, where Hamund sat waiting.
“Hello, Lucien.” Hamund’s manner was easy, as if Lucien had not broken a cardinal rule of The Mansion.  “Why were you yelling about rats? And to whom?"
“Am I in trouble?”
“Who was it, Lucien? An Elderlich should only ask once, but you’ve had an eventful day, and I don’t mind repeating myself.”
“No one,” Lucien lied. “I was only excited about the rats.”
“Where did you see rats?”
“In the cafeteria—Aito and Oji killed one.” 
“Lucien,” Hamund said patiently. “I’ll talk to Aito. Perhaps Oji let in alley cats, Lucien, but there were no rats. Do you understand?”
“I saw them,” said Lucien stubbornly. “And I called the exterminator.”
“You called...” Hamund stood over Lucien. “How did you call?”
“At QwiKafe.”
“What?”
“The convenience store.”
“You should not have done that.”
Nothing Lucien said or did was right to Hamund. “Can I go to my room?”
“No.”
Lucien glowered at the Elderlich. “Why not?”
“Conrad is being disciplined. You may wait in the Holy Foyer.” As Lucien brushed past, Hamund added, “don't speak to the exterminators, Lucien.”
“I won’t.”
“I won’t, what?”
“I won’t, Elderlich.” When Hamund went inside, Lucien's eye roll was so epic that his hand shook on the railing, and he might have tipped over if he risked a head bob. He sighed. Why should he wait in the Holy Foyer when The Elderliches would drone there for two hours tomorrow, singing songs he barely understood? They could talk and chant and talk some more, but for Lucien it was don't speak, don't talk, don't say anything, keep it inside.
The Holy Foyer had already been mopped, and its windows polished to a lambent sheen, so that though the chandeliers were off, the candles were unlit, and gray skies dimmed the stained glass window, the room caged a brightness waiting to shine.
Lucien slumped in a pew. The Mansion of the Shining Prince was a cult. He had always known it, known that there was something wrong despite his best friend. Though he did not want to be anywhere without Aito, neither did he want to be in The Mansion. Waiting in The Holy Foyer was an uncomfortable reminder of what this cult was really like without the distraction of his friend. Without Aito, the Mansion would be a horror show of boredom--he would cease to live, and only breathe and eat to mark the days. If he could not persuade his friend to join him, he would never be motivated to escape.
Slumped between the pews, Lucien froze perfectly still when he heard the voices.
“Do not worry. I will outmaneuver the laughing ones.”
“I am not worried--suspicious, perhaps, but not worried; nor am I afraid, but only determined.”
“Allay your suspicions, Balanta. I have matters well in hand.”
	“Should I not question, when you use their idioms?" 	
	“Forgive me. I meant ‘as this tale befits my paw.’” 
	"Here's one for you: twice a ratter, always a renegade. You can't turn coats as easily as you can change skin." 
Lucien could no longer keep himself from looking.  Poking his head over the pew, he saw only the grayed windows and the dim interior, but when he slid to the end for a peek down the aisle, he scuffled back to his hiding place. 
They were rats. Not whispering, but talking with perfectly audible voices. As the phrase “as this tale befits my paw” echoed in his mind, Lucien realized it wasn't English. How could he know a language, but neither the name of it, nor the land where it was spoken?
One raised its voice. “Your fawning pains me. Send me home.”
“I will accompany you as far as Musgel.”
“If you cannot be dissuaded. Just do it.” 
While the next words were a chaotic gush of nonsense, Lucien was more alarmed when the animal swelled with a deep, sonorous bass that rattled the windows.
As the light brightened, shedding distorted stained glass images of the prince, Lucien thought the sun was finally out, driving the rats back to their dens. But when the pews, chandeliers, and flagstone floor faded behind a grassy hill, a row of trees, and a bubbling stream, all of which seemed to fog up from the floor before hardening under the glare. When Lucien shielded his eyes, his hand came up dewy and grass-stained. Grass tickled his chin and stirred under his other hand where he lay on the tree-shaded hill, watching the rats scurry up the slope towards the stained glass window. While the Holy Foyer was now ghostly, and the grassy hill real, both seemed spectral compared to the stained glass window, which seemed cut out of an even sterner reality where it hung in mid-air. Just as the window seemed a glimpse of a higher place, the Holy Foyer's double doors, still open on the hallway of The Mansion, stuck out like a Coke can on a beach. 
Lucien stumbled to his knees, stunned and breathless, and nearly fell face-first. Though he arrived here laying down, it felt like he was thrown by a speeding truck. While he was amazed, he felt less that the excitement upwelled in him, but that he was steeped in wonder natural to this world. 
When the stained glass windows faded, their faintest outlines glittered, as if they were guardian angels of this strange wood. While they had roots, branches, leaves, and blossoms like the trees of Earth, the trees of this place were giants. The leafy canopy of the tree above Lucien might have swallowed a city block. When its branches quivered, creaked, and slid, he tiptoed gingerly, thinking not to tempt any lurking critters, then he did a double-take: nothing was shaking the tree except its own animated vines. He backpedaled away from the snaking vines to look up at the broader boughs of a tree so gargantuan that a squirrel might feel that it had run a marathon crossing from one side to the other. When violet and blue orchids inched along its branches, turning spotted petals toward Lucien, he felt eerily like he was being watched, a queasiness that increased when the rats scurried up a ridge spiraling around the mighty tree.
	The trees were only the most spectaculat plant life in this world. One shrub had thorns like claws, and another had glassy fruit. Though there were no road signs, Lucien knew this was Alsantia. If the worlds were true, was The Mansion truly a cult, or were they something else? He fought these ambivalent feelings, for no matter what Elderliches were elsewhere, on Earth they were a cult. Even if Worlds were real, they held no place for him, and his life lay through the Holy Foyer. This only doubled his resolve to be free of The Mansion of the Shining Prince.
Then he saw the deer. Though he had seen horses and elephants on TV, the enormous deer was the largest animal he had ever seen with his own eyes, and its rack of antlers was nearly as tall as it was, so tall that when it flicked its points at the rats, they flew over Lucien’s head to crash into the clawed bush, where one was transfixed, dying instantly without a squeak, and the other hissed, less like a rat than like a balloon, as its angry life ebbed away.
“Psst.” 
Aito stood in the doorway, gesturing to Lucien to come back to the Holy Foyer. It was weird to see the hallway’s dull green paint, and the phony white of Aito’s vestment, contrasted with the vibrant greens, blues, violets, and reds of the warm woodland. 
	“Filth! Good riddance!” The deer towered over Lucien and tossed its head, snipping a few leaves from low branches. Though the animal was so vast that any of its antlers were longer than Lucien was tall, he was more intimidated by the human-like disdain etching its face. When it spoke, this scorn could no longer be doubted: “Not you! Though you are far from your walls, doe-eyed baby human, and neither your smallness nor your youth forgive our war.”
	When the deer took another step, its next proud breath swelled its chest so far forward that Lucien backpedaled to avoid collision. “Stop running, fawn.”
	“I’m not a fawn,” Lucien said. “And you’re going to hit me.”
	“If I wanted to hit you, you’d be dead, fawn.”
	“I’m not a fawn.”
	“Why don't you run, fawn? Return through those strange doors with your Makian friend.”
	“What? Who?”
	“Don’t think I don’t see your portal, nor the other doe-eyed baby human behind you.”
	When Aito yelled, “run!”, Lucien stopped shaking and looked at the deer. He drew himself to his full height, stuck out his chest, and just as he was about to give the deer an earful, the beast’s scowl flared up as pitiless as when slaying the rats, and when it reared to flail its hooves, Lucien ran for the Holy Foyer.
	“Come on!” yelled Aito. “Run!”
	When Lucien’s heart pounded with a chest-exploding fear, he felt like screaming or growling, but could only pant. Had the Holy Foyer tripled in size? He hadn’t walked that far under the trees. Unable to risk a backwards glance, Aito’s agonized expression and the deer's shadow told him the beast was a step away, drawing out the chase to bully him for fun. Lucien had less interest in indulging this cruel bully than in patronizing Conrad, as if this large animal carried his amusement too far, a slip of its ungainly horns or hooves might make its threat of impalement or trampling real.
	No sooner did Lucien sprint through than he seized one door, Aito seized another, and they slammed them on the charging deer. In the gap before the doors pinched shut, the deer smiled smugly and lowered its antlers. "Get back!" Lucien screamed, just as the rack's impact flung the doors wide and the boys against the wall.
	When Lucien backed away on his hands and knees, it was less from the mighty deer than from the impossibility of the walls and ceiling blurring when they could not contain the beast. The spectral deer rippled back and forth between worlds as it advanced.
	“Go back!” said Lucien. “You’re becoming real!”
	“Don’t tell me what to do, doe-eyed baby human.” But when the deer looked side to side at its antlers and ears passing slower through the plaster, it tried to turn back, and its horn snagged on the wall. In its struggles to free itself from hardening reality, the deer flung forward, crushed the wall, shattered the railing, and splintered three stairs as it rolled towards the front door. 
	When Lucien heard the crash, he stepped down cautiously. He did not want to be trampled or gored if it charged upstairs.
	Bright blood spattered the smashed glass and gouged wood of the front door, and the deer stood in the parking lot over a few fragments of torn antler, swaying woozily as it turned in circles, leaning its head so far back that it could have scored its hindquarters with its own antlers. The deer’s eyes were agog at Draden's piled stone and brick, endless glass, and captured lights.
	When the station wagon turned quickly into The Mansion’s lot, Lucien saw Hanne flinch as she hit the deer.
Chapter Three

	Watch your shadow. As Akachi bowed her head and contemplated the verse, her mind followed the panels of the stained glass window. She could no longer follow them with eyes open, for something had cracked the window—a hairline crack that webbed the icons of the Shining Prince with a crisp white line. Elderlich Nyal said this meant the vandal stood in the Holy Foyer.
	Clean your paws; wash your soul. Akachi loved that window. She had used it to rehearse the life of the Shining Prince who had blessed her with the faith of the Elderliches. Without that visible image of her faith,  she could only check herself against her memory of The Unending Scroll, the secret scripture which the Elderliches said could only be heard when an Animalyte did right and spoke true. When she begged for a glimpse of the holy writ, they said it was beastly ignorance, and she would open the book herself when the Shining Prince stood revealed.
	Love not the light in the darkness;it is the brightness of your eyes. Michel echoed the holy verses as they were read. The blind girl knelt beside her and their arms were linked. Though Akachi thanked the Shining Prince for Michel, she was often like a conjoined twin. Though Akachi did not resent Michel's trust, the worrywart should trust the worrying to Akachi as well. If she really trusted Akachi, she would be more confident.
	A beast’s tail has its own soul. As if reading Akachi’s thoughts, Michel prayed, “Shining One, thank you for my sister Akachi.” Though the Elderliches preached all Animalytes were from the same litter, Akachi prayed the Shining One would not judge her lack of faith in this one instance. It was not that Akachi was strong and Michel dependent; nor that Akachi could see, and Michel was blind; nor that Akachi was black, and Michel was white—and moreover, having never seen colors, was more baffled by the concept than by that of the equally unseen Shining Prince—but only that Akachi wanted a flesh and blood family before the Elderliches dropped a dozen brothers and sisters like anchors.
	Hamund stopped reciting the creed, unclenched his praying hands, crossed them in his robe's roomy sleeves, then walked down the flagstones of the Holy Foyer. 
	“Akachi.” The blind girl murmured her name.
	“Speak up, Michel. There’s no one here.”
	“Do you believe them?”
	“You know I do.”
	“Not the Elderliches.”
	“Do I think our teachers have tails, or a talking deer smashed the window? Are our brothers and sisters always truthful?”
	“What do you mean?”
	“Do they never exaggerate or instigate?”
	“Sometimes, especially about Conrad. But he doesn’t make it easy. We don't either.”
	“How so?”
	“No one likes to feel wrong, Akachi. Because we make them feel wrong, they class us with that bully—and perhaps they’re right to do so. Does The Shining Prince tell us to hold ourselves above?” 
	“Yes,” said Akachi emphatically. “Ignore their wild tales. While there may be a grain of truth in Lucien’s if he threw something into the window by accident, Loren pins tails on teachers to be the center of attention.”
	Splat.
	“What was that?” said Michel.
	Splat. When a gust of wind whistled through the stained glass window, Akachi looked toward the altar, expecting to see the webbed cracks widening, and instead saw bright red dripping down the painted icons. She turned, looking for Lucien or Conrad. Seeing no one behind them, she led Michel up the altar stairs and around the alltar, where two falcons lay cut in half in a spreading pool of blood.
	Splat. As blood gushed over Michel’s vestments, Akachi pulled her back. Now there were six pieces of falcon. 
	Splat. 
	When the white sliver flitted through skies painted on glass, then flickered and grew to a stained glass bird, Akachi stared, flabbergasted, as the elegance of its materialization burst the moment it achieved existence in the Holy Foyer, when the webbed crack in the window cleaved it into meat and blood.
	Ding-dong.
	“What’s happening, Akachi? What’s that smell?” Splat. Another bird flew through in chunks.
	Though Akachi didn’t smell anything, the blind girl’s sense of smell was stronger. 
She led Michel down the flagstones. “You don’t want to know, Michel.”
	“Tell me, Akachi!”
	Ding-dong. Akachi groaned. This was the worst possible time; anyone might take one look and run screaming from the strange cult with dead animals behind their altar.
	Splat. It happened again.
	“Some birds flew through the window.”  Ding-dong.
	“Did they break the window?”
	“Ir was already broken.” Ding-dong. 
	“Why isn’t an Elderlich answering that?” 
	Splat.
	“I don’t know. We should answer that.”
	Splat. Ding-dong.
	“Are the birds still coming?”
	As halves of falcons piled up, feathers floated, and down drifted, Akachi was dumbstruck for thirty seconds. Then she tugged the other girl through the Holy Foyer doors, closed them, and led Michel to the stairs facing the front door, where two tall silhouettes fidgeted through the white-curtained window. 
	Akachi opened the door. Though both were indeed very tall, the woman was a foot taller than the man, and her gleaming white smile had a filed-off look that made Akachi think she was ready to bite. Akachi took a step back. “Yes?”
	“Are you Lucien?” The man did not lift his eyes up from his clipboard.
	“Yes. I mean, no, but he lives here.” Akach wondered if she should be giving out this much information. “He’s not available.”
	“Is this The Mansion of the Shining Prince?”
	“No.”
	“No?” The man frowned, but still did not look up from his clipboard.
	“Maybe. Why?”
	“Is there an adult home?”
	“Yes,” said Akachi, though she didn’t know if the Elderliches were home. “They’re also not available.”
	“Did anyone call an exterminator?” Akachi now saw that the pockets of their white shirts were embroidered with large brown patches shaped like rats with ‘RATZAPPERS,’ stiched in gold.
	This only made Akachi more anxious, for on learning Lucien called the exterminators, 
the angered Elderliches imposed an early bedtime, and the next morning told the Animalytes 
they canceled the exterminators’ appointment and stated emphatically and indignantly that there were no vermin in The Mansion of the Shining Prince. That was yesterday. Why had the Elderliches changed their mind?
	“That was canceled,” said Akachi.
	“Re-opened,” the man said. “By a, um, Piano?”  
	“Vieno,” Akachi corrected. 
	“Vieno.” The man nodded. “Is she here?” 
	“Akachi. Who is it?” Vieno stood on the stairs, just above Michel’s step.
	“Ratzappers,” said Akachi.
	“Why didn’t you let them in?” said Vieno. “Never mind. Go to your room, and take Michel with you.”
	“Yes, Elderlich.” But when Akachi led Michel upstairs, they lingered on the landing.
	When Vieno opened the door, the exterminators entered. Though he lowered his clipboard, the man's eyes still scanned back and forth, as if they followed the scurrying of vermin over the carpet and along the baseboards and molding. The enormous woman stooped under the arch of the doorway. 
	“I’m sorry about that,” said Vieno. “One minute everything was under control, 
and in the next, the vermin got underfoot.” At her sneering laugh, the exterminators tipped their heads back in a hideous giggle, as if trying to outdo her performance. 
	Akachi didn't know why her ears burned. She leaned over the rail. “Elderlich?”
	“What is it?” snapped Vieno.
	“You might want to show them the Holy Foyer. Something happened.”
	“Just go to your room, you beast. We'll fix everything.”
	Akachi led Michel around the hallway corner, drew them flat against the wall and laid her finger on Michel's lips. 
	"Shh!"
	“What did she mean?” asked the man. “We’re the only ones dispatched.”
	“I know,” said Vieno. “It must be an actual outbreak.”
	“Have you located it?”
	“Only Hamund knows,” said Vieno. “Though I have opinions.”
	“Then we’ll make a clean sweep,” said the giant woman. “It’s a shame, but we must be certain.”
	Akachi did not know why killing the vermin should be a shame; their talk seemed to skirt another subject entirely. 
	“Michel,” she hissed. “Can you get back to our room?” Though she could walk and see for both of them, shadowing and eavesdropping were hard enough for one.
	“Not on your life. I’m coming with you.”
	Akachi growled, but took her arm and forced a glad thought. Outside the litter, there is only the world.
	“Still, we should see what’s trying to come through," grumbled the man. 
	“There’s no need,” said Vieno. “Nothing can come through. I saw to that myself.”
	“Why would the beast lie?” asked the giant woman.
	“If it will bring you peace, I’m happy to open the foyer.”
	“I’m no peacemaker, fox. “
	“We’re here to start a war,” said the man.
	While Akachi did not know what to think, the exterminators had not come for the rats or birds. Perhaps Lucien told the truth—that the deer Hanne struck cursed the ‘doe-eyed baby humans’ as ‘witches in a witch-world.' Perhaps Loren did glimpse a tail on Vieno--now called a fox in her presence. Perhaps the parables and fables of other Worlds were likewise true, and an elephant rolled a rock up to heaven; a beaver dammed the river of forgetfulness until animals saw their words in the foaming churn; a mynah echoed the hymn of creation in a song that brought the magic of names and the science of shapes to the animals; the eagle Zekran defeated the human Thulsor to turn the tide at the Battle of Katarda; and, the bear witch Ramedra was tricked by Iliea the human thief, who then taught naming and shaping to her own apprentices. 
	When the Holy Foyer doors closed, Akachi led Michel slowly downstairs. As they approached the doors, Aito and Chiyo ran towards them from the kitchen.  
	When Akachi held up her hand and shook her head, Chiyo slowed down immediately, but Aito trotted the rest of the way.
	"What are..." he began, but Akachi's palm covered his mouth, After their eyes met, she pointed through the cracked doors to Vieno and the exterminators standing over the gory floor behind the altar.
	“This would be funny,” said the man, “if it didn’t show how serious they are.”
	“I’m laughing,” said the giant woman, though she neither laughed nor smiled.
“They don't know they’re sending this unit to their deaths.”
	“I’m not laughing. They’ve found our doorway,” said Vieno.
	Not only were Chiyo and Aito not shocked to see the dead birds, but their sad faces troubled Akachi. She had not pondered it long when The Shining Prince's stained glass deeds shattered in a many-colored shower and an animal swarm flooded the Holy Foyer. No, not a swarm, Akachi told herself, for a swarm was verminous, and these were deer, bears, wildcats, horses, wolves, and beavers; a swarm was disorganized, and these thirty beasts composed stern, noble faces and formed ranks like a small army.	
	“Run!” screamed Vieno, but the exterminators were already bowling past the children. 
Vieno ran pell-mell after them. 
	When the beasts scampered and clattered down the flagstone aisle, Akachi closed the doors, but as she reached for the lock, Aito pulled her away, Chiyo took Michel’s arm, and the four cowered against the wall as the animal army roared through the crumpling doors
	The woman barked, “above all else, find the prince!”
	“Yes, milady." When the man trailed Vieno to the kitchen, the giant woman ran upstairs, and the animals split in two packs to pursue them. Though the four Animalytes were left alone in the hall outside the Holy Foyer, the aftershock of the noise still seemed to shiver in the wood and plaster.
	“Did they say prince?” asked Akachi.
	“Maybe they meant prints, as in animal prints?” said Aito.
	“That’s stupid, Aito,” said Chiyo. “You can do better.”
	“You know something, don't you?” said Akachi.
	“No,” said Chiyo and Aito, as one.
	Michel said, “what was that noise, Akachi?”
	“Animals. Lots of animals, chasing the exterminators and Vieno.”
	“Could it be a sign?”
	“Definitely. A sign that we should find the Elderliches.”
	“No,” said Aito. “We have to find Oji.”
	“The cat? Is everyone crazy?”
	“They might kill Oji.”
	“Isn't this at all strange to you? Bears and deer in Draden?
	“I don’t know what’s strange. I’m only twelve. You’re only eleven. Tell you what—find the Elderliches. We’ll find Oji.” Aito and Chiyo went upstairs.
	Michel said, “Though I didn’t see anything, I know it was strange, Akachi.”
	“No kidding. What do we do?”
	“You’re asking me?”
	“Yes, I’m asking you. Who else can I ask?” Akachi thought, who else can I trust, but did not say that.
	“Aren't we still outside the Holy Foyer? Ask The Shining Prince.”
	“You wouldn't say that if you saw what I did.”
	“Why? Why fear seeing signs and following miracles? Where will they lead but to the presence of the one calling you?"
	Akachi growled. “You’re right. Pray with me, Michel. Show me how to follow without seeing.” Though the two girls held hands and bowed their heads, neither was willing to begin the prayer. 
	Akachi was also loath to lead Michel into the Holy Foyer, which might soon become a battlefield of crazy animals and sinister exterminators.  
	“It’s okay if we pray here, Akachi.”
	“Is it? What if no one’s listening?”
	“What do you mean?”
	“If the window was a portal to Alsantia, is the prince a real prince?”
	“Akachi, though you think to keep me innocent of danger, I cannot turn a blind eye to your peril.”
	“My peril is yours, Michel.”
	“No, Akachi. My peril is in this world, yours is in the next."
	“To trust my eyes is not atheism, Michel.”
	“You just said our prayers do not reach the Prince, but only a place in the window.
Are our hopes mapped in Alsantia?”
	“Forgive me, Michel. I shouldn't trouble you with my doubts.”
	“Psst.” Conrad leaned over the second floor railing. “Have you seen Chiyo?”
	After leading Michel halfway up the steps, Akachi answered: “they’re looking for Oji.”
	Conrad frowned. “They?”
	“Chiyo and Aito.”
	Conrad scowled. “Fine. Follow me.”
	Suddenly, Akachi had an anxious presentiment of tall, ungainly Conrad springing whole from the giant woman, whom he otherwise resembled not in the slightest, from his ruddy, freckled face to his blunt, perfect teeth.
	“Come on,” hissed Conrad, then started upstairs without a backward glance. “I called the cops."
	“Why?”
	“Are you crazy? Look around you.”
	“We’re on a stairwell. There’s not much to see.”
	“I know you saw them!" When Conrad's voice rose to a teakettle pitch, then faltered into a seething hiss, Akachi backpedaled, clinging to Michel's arm. "Bears!...and wolves!"
	“I saw them," said Akachi. "If you're worried about your own skin, you should know that some of them ran up here after the giant woman."
	"Giant? That was an albino, Akachi."  Conrad's eye roll had a quieting effect, rolling away his hysterics and rolling out his smug smile.
	"Albinos don't have shark teeth, Conrad. Do you want to help? Find the Elderliches.”
	“They’re not here!” 
	“Where did they go?”
	“Who cares! I don’t want to get shot when the police arrive.”
	“Why would they shoot you, Conrad?”
	“Accidents happen! I read Yahoo News. We're locking ourselves in."
	“There he is!” 
	After jumping half a foot, Conrad looked where Akachi pointed, at the ginger cat rubbing against the balcony rails. Oji glared back, darted in for a swipe at Conrad' legs, then stopped, arched his back, and flattened his ears. As the cat looked down the hallway, his hair stood on end, and his eyes flickered as wide as flashlights.
	“Is that Oji?” Michel stooped, then groped indiscriminately at wall, fur, and the folds of Conrad’s pants before finally clasping the ginger cat and rubbing her face in Oji's.
	At a horrendous splintering, Akachi whirled to see a huge bear squeeze through the ruins of the stairwell door. 
	Sniff, sniff, grumble. The floor creaked as the bear ambled down the hallway, its fur brushing the dull plaster walls. “There you are.” Its voice was crisp, bold and stern, as if its words were highlighted in an imaginary word balloon.
	Akachi pulled Michel in the library and shut the door so rapidly, that only in sliding a table to the door did she uncover the snarling and the yellow eyes. In fleeing the bear, she missed three wolves crouching under the library tables.
	“What luck. It comes right to us.” When the beast stood on its hind legs and shoved Michel with its front paws, Akachi backpedaled to keep her upright, and both girls collided with a wobbly shelf. When books rained down, Akachi swept them on the wolf, and one volume stuck straight up in its jaws. 
	As the library door burst inward, the bear moseyed in front of the children, and the wolves' tails crept between their legs, but when their heads hunkered down in reverent fear, their smiles climbed like grotesque cliffs--travesties of mirth--and one padded behind the bear. Through the remains of the splintered library door, Akachi glimpsed Conrad gawk at the standoff, duck into the boys’ bedroom, then quietly close the door. 
	“Will you winter in this ogre cave?” said the bear.
	“It’s no cave,” said one wolf, his tone high and yapping, as if squeezing back a belly-laugh, “but a mass grave for ogres past and dead, as well as some living who bury their spirits in words.”
	“You run in graves because your paws are idle,” said the bear.
	“He sounds jealous,” said another wolf.
	“Escort us to the World Cave,” said the bear. “Say no more of ogres and their strange appetites for the unreal.”
	“What if we have a taste for bear?” When its sneer fanned wide into bared teeth, they pounced as one, chomping the bear’s neck and hindlegs. Animal blood spattered on Runaway Ralph, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh, and other book spines, then seeped into the faded carpet. Though the bear swept a paw through a skull—flinging wolf brains on The Jungle Book, Animal Farm, and The Call of the Wild—and bit the face buried in its throat, the wolves had savaged him so quickly that Akachi had no time to gasp. When she was yanked through the tattered doorway, she almost let go of Michel, and they stumbled over each other as Conrad led them down the steps.   
	  Sirens and strobing blue and red lights flooded the first floor as they rounded the stairs, opened the front door, and stepped into the blaring brightness. Having parked behind the exterminators’ van, the police opened the trunks of their cars, armed themselves with shotguns, then turned to the children. 
	“Come into the parking lot and stand by the fence,” The tall and spindly officer had sunken cheeks, a dark brown complexion, and whitening temples below a coarse, black buzz cut.
	“Who’s Conrad? Are you Conrad?” said a tall and beefy, red-faced officer. The other two seemed like inferior copies of this one, as if he broke the mold, but the police officer factory either hadn’t noticed, or didn’t have quality controllers, and kept pumping them out. They were also tall, but more chicken than beef, and more orange in the cheek than red.
	“That’s me.”  
	“Are there really bears in there?” Though growls, roars, and howls spilled from the open door to echo in the parking lot, the officer’s next question was, “have you seen a bear, kid?”
	“Less than two minutes ago. Up those steps.”
	“How did it get in there?” Though the skinny officer smiled, it was an inoffensive smile, 
like a crash test dummy that saw crashing headlights. “Never mind,” he said, shaking his head. “Johnny, even if it isn’t a bear, that doesn’t sound good.”
	“What’s your call, Josephus? Do we wait for animal control?”
	“Is this it?” asked Conrad in disbelief. “Where are the others?”   	
	“What you see is what you get,” said Josephus, then turned to Johnny. “We can either make PETA happy or save this tax-paying cult of crazies. Not an ideal choice.”
	“Nuts,” said another officer. “Churches don’t pay taxes.”  
	“Is this a church now? Let’s donate some lead.” Johnny laughed.
	“Bring it down a little, Johnny” snapped Josephus. “The kids’ culty friends and culty den-mothers might be getting mauled in there. Don’t shoot anything in one of those dresses—or anything like an exterminator.”  Akachi couldn’t believe her ears. They were nothing like cops on television.
	The fourth officer pointed. “What about raccoons?” Its diamond eyes looked quizzically through the crack, then shouldered open the door. On all fours, the huge raccoon was still waist high.
	"That's no raccoon!" gasped Josephus. "It's a St. Bernard!"
	"If that's a St. Bernard, where's the booze?" snorted Johnny. 
	“It doesn't look violent," said the fourth officer.
	“It’s a lucky critter, then. Here's the cattle prod,” said Johnny, taking the electric cudgel from his belt, then turning it on.
	“Move it out of our way, Johnny” said Josephus.
	“What strange heraldry,” quipped the raccoon in a smooth, urbane voice, like an actor that had read for a hundred roles, “and what strange arms you bear.”
	“Gahh!” said Johnny, staggering back on the step and nearly twisting his ankle as he crashed into the officer behind him. “That’s a kid! I almost stunned a kid!” Johnny grasped the metal porch rails, pulled himself up, then limped back on the porch.
	“Kid, that’s an amazing costume,” said Josephus.
	“Is there a goat behind me? I'm no kid.” The racoon's seething growl left little doubt that this was no cosplay, but an animal, and Johnny backpedaled and raised the cattleprod. “Are you bent on doing me harm? I thought you were this world's peacekeepers.”  The raccoon’s eyes narrowed. When he slammed the door, they heard his receding scamper.   
	“Akachi...” Though the hiss was barely audible, its echo in the alley leading to the parking lot sent a shudder down her spine. She resisted the impulse to turn. Her eyes were on the officers. When they battered the door and went inside, she tread silently towards the voice, leaving Michel with Conrad. 
	Though it was the twilight moment before street lights turn on, the squad cars’ strobing lights lit the alley but lengthened Akachi's shadow to darken the details.
	When a hand closed on her wrist, she yanked back by instinct, and dragged Aito into the light.
	“It’s only me." With him were Chiyo, Loren, Berangere, and Lucien. Their faces were wrinkled  by drowsiness, and Loren’s half-lidded, dreamy eyes were so sunken that they looked fox-like.
	“Why are you hiding?”
	“Why do you think?” said Berangere acerbically.
	Aito said, “have you seen Oji?”
	“Michel has the cat.” 
	On receiving this intelligence, Aito sprinted to the front, then led Conrad and Michel, who still carried Oji, back to the group. 
	“We’re leaving,” Aito said. 
	“Where are we going?”
	“Does it matter? Animals broke our window, police broke our door, and then there are the exterminators.”
	“I don’t think they are exterminators.”
	“Who cares,” said Conrad. “We’re going.”
	“You don’t speak for me!” said Michel, before Akachi could say anything.
	Akachi said, “where would we go, Aito?”  
	“There's a Mansion in Pelhurst,” he said.
	“We should wait for the Elderliches.” 
	“We not only won't be allowed back in,” said Lucien, "but the wolves, deer, and rats prove that we're a cult, and from there they'll assume we sacrifice animals. If we don't leave, we’ll be separated in different homes.”  
	“Listen to Lucien,” Aito said.
	“Why?” sneered Conrad. “You’d back up any of his lies.”
	When bloodcurdling screams joined the menagerie of animal cries, the retort of shotgun blasts roared, the beastly shrieks rioted back, and Josephus, his arm dripping blood, escaped the front door, trailing one officer. There was no sign of Johnny or the other policeman. Tamping down on his wounded arm with his other hand, Josephus bellowed, “kids, get in the car! It’s not safe here.” 
	“Now or never,” said Chiyo. 
	When Michel said, “now!" her friend's terror echoed in her own quickened heartbeat. Lucien’s gloomy prediction was so reasonable that if it came half true, they might never see each other again. Akachi did not want to lose her best friend.
	“We’re going,” said Akachi. “You’d better be right, Aito.” 
	As they entered the shadowed alley, the car doors slammed, its headlights lit half their bodies, and their faces were half light, half dark dominoes. Conrad broke into his fastest gait, and they followed. 
	Though Michel ran with purpose once Akachi pulled her in the right direction, they brought up the rear, and Officer Josephus soon drove beside them, lowered his window, and said, “This is not a request. Get in.”
	Akachi shook her head. Though Michel panted in her efforts, Akachi continued to set a tough pace. 
	When the alley ran behind the QwikKafe to a wide street with traffic speeding both ways, Officer Josephus whooped the siren, strobed the light, and stopped the squad car.
	“You kids!” Josephus shouted. “Get in the car!” When Akachi ran past, he grabbed Michel with his wounded arm, winced, and stumbled against the car.
	“Michel,” said Akachi, now panting herself, “we’re running across the street. Whatever you do, don’t stop!”
	When Michel’s breath was too labored to reply, Akachi was glad not to elaborate on the insanity of a plunge into the bustling street, though when they dodged the first car, that motorist laid into their horn, and Michel screamed. While the blind girl did not stop, her panting became twice as strained. Though they dashed through the second and third lane a good distance ahead of approaching vehicles, they were still nearly clipped by the speeding night drivers.
	“Is this the sidewalk? Let’s stop here,” said Michel. Though they had three more lanes to cross, Akachi let Michel catch her breath on the traffic island dividing eastbound from westbound traffic. Behind them, Officer Josephus shouted himself hoarse, while on the other side of the six lane throughfare was the tree line of Longview Park.   
	Michel’s panting had become deeper and calmer when Akachi said, “I know you’re not ready, but the policeman is crossing, and this is our best shot to cross.” When Michel nodded, the blaring, braking traffic gave way as they raced through the lanes, crashed through the tree line, then dashed over the grass to a dusty park sidewalk with grass spreading through the cracks. 
	“Come on, Michel, can’t you outrun an old man?”
	“That’s not fair,” puffed Michel.
	“So you have bad eyes. He probably has bad knees and a heart three times your size from too much fast food, while you pray six times a day and eat granola.”   
	“You watch too many cop shows,” said Michel.
	“You do too.” While Michel couldn’t see, as a skilled listener, she got more out of “watching” television than Akachi, who would come to regret introducing her friend to Monsters of Crime.Though Michel was insensible to the gore, she was so taken aback by the bloodcurdling dialogue that she once asked Njall if Elderliches were from another planet, that they would allow kids to watch that show.  
	The cool September breeze swirled the fallen leaves; leaves as dark as coffee grounds between park lights, then blazing bright as the tips of crayons under the lamps, their stems tracing light green handprints through the dry browns, oranges, and autumn reds. As they crossed a playground, lamp light fell on dark red trails over asphalt and grass.  
	“Michel, what are we doing?”
	“I thought you knew.”
	“I don’t know anything.”
	“I don’t either.”
	“We might have lived our whole lives in The Mansion.”
	“They had plans for us, Akachi.”
	“If they did, they never talked about them.”
	“Yes they did. They taught us about worlds.”
	“Those were parables...allegories!”
	“Obviously not,” interrupted Loren. “Though our lives in The Mansion and The Elderliches themselves were unreal, the parables were very real.”
	“They were more real than the Shining Prince,” said Berangere.
	“You’re guessing,” said Akachi. “You don’t know anything.” Her throat hurt and her eyes were wet.
	“What do you know, Akachi?” asked Conrad. If Officer Josephus was in the park, he was nowhere near the children, who saw and heard nothing but the wind twitching dry, bright leaves.
	The street that bordered the other side of the park was so backed up that they were able to thread their way through the sluggish cars. 
	“Hey, you little crazies!” Having tapped on her brakes to avoid bumping Aito, the jolt had whipped her shouting head towards the dashboard. “I thought you were ghosts in that get-up!”
	The rider behind her also crunched his brakes, then shouted, “Keep that Harry Potter cosplay at home, you weirdoes!”  
	When the shouting and derision inspired the other bored commuters, the kids’ ears were blistered by profanity, while some half-understood remarks reddened their faces. Even if they had not passed under a white sign reading Draden College of The Humanities, they might have guessed it was a campus from the young drivers, all wearing the red and gray of the Draden Barnmice,and some seeming too petite to drive. 
	“How do you go to college?” mused Akachi.
	“Get down!” hissed Chiyo. Akachi pulled Michel down behind a hedge so low 
that they had to crawl on hands and knees. Between the needled branches of the hedge, 
Akachi saw the white Ratzappers van circling in the parking lot of a building with a granite sign that dubbed it The Socratic Institute of Graduate Studies.
	When the van creeped away, the children stood.
	Lucien said, “if we go parking lot to parking lot, we can stay off the street.”
	Four whooping bare chested young men, painted with red numbers and gray mice, crested the hill. Their cheer of “Go Barnmice!” gradually slurred, until Barnmice sounded like Barmice.
	“Hey Barnmice!” shouted a deep, ugly voice. “White mice!” When he pointed, there could be no doubt the children were the mice.  
	“This way,” hissed Chiyo. They followed along the hedge bordering a large building that seemed more window than concrete. Despite the late hour, the parking lot was packed with 
young adults drinking from red plastic cups, and with lighted cars, each with open doors or trunks, and tuned to different radio stations.
	Chiyo led them in a winding route to the edge of campus, where they stood in the shadow of a building named Oswin Hall that faced the Draden Public Library, a boxy Italian restaurant called Santi’s, and the Grayhound station. While she was not disappointed with the library's cozy collection of books, having once tagged along when Hanne took Berangere to get Wuthering Heights, Akachi had fond memories of Santi's, which were powerfully evoked by the strong scent of garlic bread and tomato sauce. “Berangere,” she asked, “do you remember?”
	“Of course I do. I dream of Santi’s.”
	“What’s Santi’s?” asked Michel.  
	“It’s good?” asked Aito.
	“We don’t have time,” said Chiyo.
	“If we’re going all the way to Pelhurst,” said Conrad, “we should eat first.”
	“Just how are we going to Pelhurst, anyhow?” asked Akachi.
	“I have this,” said Aito. The small black wallet was stuffed with green bills.
	“Where did you get that?” asked Conrad.
	“Was I sick when the Elderliches gave those out?” said Berangere.
	“How I got it is a long story. Let's save it for the trip to Pelhurst.” Turning to Chiyo, Aito said, “Conrad’s right. We have to eat, and stopping might confuse those looking for us.”
	“Who are they, anyway?” asked Michel. “And won’t Santi's think it’s weird to serve eight kids in, as they see it, 'cosplay'?”
	“Who cares? Running on a full stomach can’t be as bad as running on an empty stomach.”
	Santi’s was packed with college kids in red and gray. Aito leaned in to whisper to the greeter and gave him a bill, and the older boy led them to a dirty table strewn with finger-stained napkins, chicken wing bones, shelled peanuts, and wet drinking glasses. The greeter took the dirty glasses with him through the kitchen door, and another boy emerged, thumped a plastic bin on their table, leaned over the exhausted children for the dirty dishes, then carried the rattling bin back to the kitchen.
	When their waiter arrived bearing a tray with glasses of ice and a pitcher of water, 
his smile likewise propped up his arched eyebrow, so exaggerated was the look of condescension he served his young table. As Akachi was avoiding ugly looks from neighboring tables, she couldn’t help looking right into the waiter’s sarcastic face, and when she couldn’t hold her glance, she noticed the others staring at him as well.
	Aito said, “I hear the food’s good.”
	“Yeah,” sighed the waiter, “it’s really good. Grilled cheese all around?”
	“No, bring us spaghetti and garlic bread.”
	“I’ll take grilled cheese,” said Conrad.
	“No spaghetti?” asked the waiter.
	“No, I want spaghetti too. But grilled cheese sounds great. I’m really hungry.”
	“Can I have a white sauce? And a salad?” asked Michel in a tiny little voice.
	“Make that two salads,” said Akachi.
	“Hey, I like salad,” said Lucien.
	“Bring us all a salad,” said Aito.
	“Don’t expect me to eat it,” muttered Conrad.
	“I’m sorry for asking,” the waiter drawled languidly, “but who’s paying for all this?”
	“I’ve got you,” said Aito, flashing the wallet again. “And I’ll take care of you too.” 
	The waiter’s smile became less lopsided, and his arched eyebrow relaxed into a unibrow, as if he had dropped off his icy attitude along with the ice water. “Okay, then. Spaghetti all around.”
	Though a tray of cokes soon doubled the icy glasses wetting the table, their food took so long that Akachi, preoccupied by nervousness, barely heard her stomach grumble, and the others’ chatter sunk into a gloomy mutter. It didn’t help that Santi’s smelled good; like a savory cloud, the aroma of roasting garlic, oven-toasted bread, and tomato sauce made their faces sweat and their mouths water in anticipation. 
	When their waiter returned with a tray so large it could have served as a table, Aito, Chiyo, Michel, and Berangere were served first. In the two minutes that passed before he returned with the other tray, the served kids, without looking up at their plateless friends, tucked in, twirled and scooped noddles with gusto, and shoveled in the thick sauce with planks of garlic bread. When her heavy plate finally clanked under her chin, she was so drained and reduced by hunger that she barely felt up to the challenge of the heaped spaghetti, but when the thick steam moistened her wavering eyes and the tip of her nose, she took a small bite, then turned into a pasta-eating machine, barely pausing for air.
	Though she had a faint idea that her chews were not unpleasant, at first the sauce was more of a lubricant for cramming food down the hatch, and it wasn’t until her belly was half packed that she noticed the piquant herbal aroma and began to savor the garlicky marinara flowing on spongy noodles and chunky vegetables. It was better than she remembered, for the passage of time had dimmed the flavors until the memory was only vaguely yummy, and when the deliciousness gripped her, she regretted her numb inhalation of the first third of the plate.
	“This is good,” she said.
	“It’s not bad,” said Conrad.
	“You’ve had better? You live in the same place we do.”
	“I’m allowed to want better things,” he said. “There’s too much garlic.”
	“That’s what makes it good,” said Loren.
	Michel spoke softly. “There might be a little too much garlic, but I wasn’t going to say anything. Thanks for the meal, Aito.” Oji was not critical of the garlic. His forelegs were on the table, and he lapped Michel’s alfredo sauce.
	“Sure,” said the boy.   
	Because their booth was recessed into a niche in the wall, and only Akachi and Michel, at the end of the table, were in the line of sight of the door, only Akachi saw the tall man and gigantic woman enter. After grabbing Michel’s arm and squeezing them both further in the booth, she turned to shush the table, then mouthed silently who arrived. When they shook their head bewilderedly—as if more than a handful of people chased them—she rolled her eyes and said in as low a tone as she dared, “Exterminators!”
	Aito laid three crisp fifty dollar bills on the table, then peeked around the pillar blocking the door. “The police officer just came in. They’re talking. Follow me.”
	When Aito walked with a light step past the kitchen door, Akachi followed, pulling Michel down the hallway and past the restrooms to a large security door. When Aito couldn’t budge the handle, Loren, Berangere, and Conrad pushed hard and the door unjimmied with a loud buzzing. Conrad held the door as they passed into the alley.
	“I can’t believe they didn’t see us,” said Lucien. “That was good luck.”
	“Don’t talk,” said Berangere. “Run.”
	After they jumped into the alley, Akachi pulled Michel into a run—not waiting for the others, as she was tired of being the last in the group. When they reached the Draden Public Library parking lot, they heard shouts, and Akachi turned. The gigantic woman had Conrad by the arm, and the man ran towards the children. 
	“Leave him,” he shouted. “Get the prince!”
	After sprinting to Akachi, Aito thrusted out a wad of bills. “10:15 to Rockham.”
	“You said Pelhurst.”
	“No! Rockham. Don’t let anyone see you.”
	“Where are you going?”
	“On the Pelhurst. If we don’t transfer at Morwin Station, wait for us in Rockham.” The tall man was nearly upon them. “Run, Akachi.” 
	When Akachi dashed, Michel faltered, and though they soon worked out a careening gait, in which the blind girl copied Akachi's steps at a split second lag, Akachi was so certain it was not fast enough that at the shouts, the bloodcurdling screams, and the patter of sneakers, she did not turn, but swept forward. 
	The flickering dimness of the Greyhound station seemed painfully bright after their night run.  In the vendor window, the aged teller turned glossy pages of celebrity photos underscored with garish red letters like a comic book. She did not look up. “Destination?”
	“Rockham.”
	“There’s a 10:15 in ten minutes if you hurry.”
	“Yes, please.”
	“Four?”
	Akachi looked behind her. Loren and Lucien had caught up to them. 
	Though uncertain if she had enough, she nodded. 
	“Two hundred dollars and twelve cents.”
	Akachi unrolled the wad to find five fifty dollar bills. While the aged woman counted out change at a glacial speed, Akachi glanced at the door. She started to worry about the others.  
	“No pets.” She scowled. “Is anyone coming for him?”
	“Yes,” Akachi lied.
	“They have five minutes if you don't want to miss your bus. Luggage?”
	“No.”
	“Board through the B door.”
	After Michel stuffed Oji in her capacious sleeves, Akachi led them through the B gate to climb into the Rockham bus. Though the lights were on and the engine was idling, the seats were cold.
	Lucien said, “Akachi, this is the wrong bus.”
	“Aito said Rockham. You're supposed to be going to Pelhurst.”
	Loren said, “Berangere is going to Pelhurst? No way.” She had half-turned when Akachi caught her by the wrist.
	“We’re meeting at Morwin Station. If you do something dumb, we’ll get caught.”
	“Why would Aito do that?" asked Lucien.
	“I don’t know. Sit down, and keep your head low. You too, Loren.” They hunkered down in two facing seats, so as to be unseen except from the aisle. 
	"And why are exterminators chasing us? That’s creepy.”
	“Not as creepy as wolves,” said Michel.
	“Wolves?” 
	Though Akachi was a fast storyteller, she was only halfway through the wolf and bear battle when Vieno sat between Loren and Lucien. 
	“Are you hungry?” When Vieno reached into a plastic QwiKafe bag, it set off warning bells; not only did she act as if running away was completely normal, but two kinds of potato chips, beef jerky, pork rinds, and chocolate bars were a junk food feast uncharacteristic of the Elderlich attitude to diet and body. Akachi's gut twisted remembering Vieno cozying to the Exterminators, and she felt like she couldn’t exhale without shouting to run, but when she noticed that the Elderlich vestments were grainy with dirt, leaf fragments, and burrs, as if she crawled on her belly to the Greyhound station, she held her tongue with the ultimate of efforts. If there was a tail under Vieno's vestments, a warning might get her friends clawed. 
	Akachi was still debating what to do when the bus pulled away. 
	
Chapter Four:

	“Conrad, run!” No sooner had Chiyo shouted this than she felt numbed by stupidity, for the boy could never break free. Though she yanked at Conrad’s arm, and Aito pulled them as taut as rubber-bands at their snapping point, they could not pry him from the gigantic woman, and when the tall man's gangly arms circled Aito's waist like an ungainly python, then jerked him away, Chiyo fell in the recoil, and Conrad was swept over the huge woman’s head. In the light of the swaying Santi’s door and the wet shadows of the alley, the behemoth seemed an albino, hairless gorilla, and Conrad as measly as a tree monkey. 	
	Not that Chiyo didn’t know an ogre when she saw one. While the dull Earth dwellers swallowed anything costumed in the commonplace, such as a Ratzapper's uniform, a clear head on any world would be wary of her brazen differences, like the huge, squared-off hands formed from five thumbs each as long and wide as a hamster, not to mention needle-sharp teeth in a head as round as a snowman's. No matter what cosplay she wore, this was no person, but a fiend in need of slaying. 
	When the ogre dangled Conrad from one huge thumb-hand wrapped around his shoulder joint, the other grasped his chin. “Where’s the prince, groundworm—tell me where he is!”
	“You’re hurting me! Let go!”
	“The prince! Now!”
	Having seized Aito and Chiyo's elbows, the tall man flung them toward the ogre, twisting his wrists at the last moment so that they snapped forward and stumbled to keep their feet. 
	When Aito dropped the whistle—a simple tin whistle on a copper chain—he stooped for it, and the tall man yanked Aito up by his vestment. Chiyo dove, scraping one hand on wet blacktop, and with only half a thought of the whistle's grime and rainwater drizzle, put it to her pursed lips and blew.
	Despite the utter silence of the noiseless whistle, the ogre’s face contorted in rage, and as she reached inside her white exterminator jacket, Conrad fell into a bruised, groaning heap.
	“Stupid,” said the ogre. "Groundworms can’t blow whistles!” The hand emerged from the coat flap gripping a dull iron key about a foot long, and with a hoop handle large enough for the ogre’s thumb-hand. As if in response to this apparent threat, howls and yawls rang shrill, as if the crying beasts were a block away. The ogre furrowed her brow, and the key glowed white, but when she pointed it at Chiyo, Conrad sprang onto her outstretched arm. Though the key's iron point went askew, its bright, sizzling bolt found a target, ricocheting off its own reflection in a puddle, then bouncing in the glare of a Santi’s window to strike Conrad. 
	The boy slumped from the humongous arm to his hands and knees, hiccupped, then writhed, seeming to shrink, shrivel, and pink. 
	The ogre's face wrinkled into an expression unique to ogres, like a scowl crushing a smile, and when she raised the key for a second time, her arm was smacked aside by towering antlers, and the rest of her was smashed back by a gigantic deer. 
	“Conrad!” shouted Chiyo. The boy’s clothes deflated as he shrunk and shrunk, until the back of his vestment settled on the wet pavement, and a pink earthworm crawled out of his sleeve.
	When a raccoon and a wildcat skulked out of the alley shadows, the tall man drew an iron key and stabbed toward the cat, who crouched back, then circled the wary human. While each looked for an opening, the ogre clenched the rack of antlers and vainly strove against the mighty deer, and the raccoon turned toward Chiyo and Aito.
	“Flee, children. Protect the prince.”
	“Thank you, venerable Jgorga,” said Chiyo. “He yet lives.”
	“Thank me not,” said Jgorga the raccoon, “for nothing is accomplished. So long as the prince does not sit on the Noble Pelt, only false kings will rule in Alsantia.”
	Two wolves jogged into the alley. “Well met, Jgorga.”
	“Shakalra, escort these humans where they need to go.”
	Four more wolves trotted behind them, two of whom limped and bled from dark wounds. “Do no such thing, Shakalra.”
	“Cgega does not run this pack.”
	“Shakalra does not run with it,” growled Cgega, “or Shakalra does not run.”
	When a wounded brown bear with bloody gray fur in his mouth loped into the alley way, it roared, “Cgega has turned, Shakalra.”
	Shakalra looked sidelong at the wolf next to him. “Who is your chief, Ulfis?” 
	Ulfis glanced at his chief, then Cgega. “There is only one chief, and he is no belly-crawler for ogres.” When the wolves snarled and joined battle, the bear lumbered forward on his hind legs to lend his might to Shakalra, though the fight still seemed uneven when Aito grabbed Chiyo's hand and pulled her into a stumbling run. Craning her neck and straining to keep her eyes on Conrad's crumpled clothes broke her stride, causing Aito to tug so hard that she churned through a puddle and the hem of her vestments soaked through to her ankles.
	They ran and ran down the alley, past the library, and into the Greyhound parking lot, 
where one lighted bus trailed fumes in its departure, and passengers filed into another with an idling motor.
	“Just board, Chiyo. We don’t have time!” said Aito.
	“You can’t stowaway on a bus,” said Chiyo. “I’ll tell them not to leave while you buy tickets.”
	“Leave without me if you have to."
	“That's pointless. The prince needs both of us.” As Chiyo climbed aboard, Aito dashed at the Greyhound station so fast that the automatic doors only cracked an inch before he blasted through.
	“It’s about time.” Though she did not recognize the voice, there was something familiar about it. “Where does duty take you today?” While the driver's bald head and white beard drew a blank, his subtle accent was so naggingly familar that she wondered if it was Alsantian. While she would have liked to hope it was Alsantian, nothing good had come from Alsantia in years, and her wonder felt more like fear than hope.
	“I’m going home to Pelhurst,” she lied. "Mom and Dad...”
	He cut her off with a wave of his wrinkled hand. “While I can't drive you home, I might drive you near.” Despite his easy-going vagueness, Chiyo heard the insinuation—though a bus couldn't reach Alsantia, he might drive her to a portal. When a woman boarded with two children, he said, “come closer, so I don’t have to yell.” 
	Though the driver didn’t look like an ogre, some ogres concealed their monstrousness in human cities. While the faintest taint of ogre would have raised Oji's hackles, Chiyo's uncertainty rubbed her the wrong way, and she was reluctant to approach. Her moment of indecision stretched tighter and tighter, until a soldier in camo fatigues dragged a large duffel toward the bus.
	The old Alsantian said, “wait here,” exited the bus, and took the soldier's duffel  As he loaded it in the undercarriage cargo, another family boarded, then two boys and two girls, either in late high school or early college—which Chiyo could never tell apart, as both cast the same shade of teenage contempt on smaller kids, as if aging a few years was an achievement. 
	If she lived through the next few days, Chiyo would count it as an accomplishment.
	Chiyo's eyelids drooped as she watched the boarders: two more soldiers with two more duffels, three bearded young men with backpacks, a dozen drunken young adults in the red and gray of Draden Barnmice, two elderly women in matching baja sweaters, and lastly, a graying woman with a large musical instrument case that she insisted on loading herself into the undercarriage.	
	Then she saw them coming towards the other side of the bus. Looking wartorn, with slashed white jackets, and a sleeve missing from the man’s, the Exterminators limped into the parking lot, followed by a man and a woman with spiky hair and wolfish grins that made their faces seem not only fanged but hinged, leers that looked out of place considering the contusions and scratches on their cheeks, neck and arms. 
	When Berangere and Aito boarded, Chiyo pulled them down into a crouch, then towed them toward the back, where they found no empty benches, until one soldier stood up.
	“Sit here if you want.” Another soldier scooted over, and he sat beside his friend. 
	“Thank you.”	
	“Who are you hiding from?” He looked out the window. “I hope those nuts aren’t boarding. Look at that snagglepuss.” His bullying snicker was a comforting ugliness in Chiyo’s present straits. 
	“Do you need any help?” said the other soldier.
	“Actually,” said Chiyo, “could you sit here, on the edge of our seat? They might not notice us.”
	“It’ll be tight.”
	“Just until we leave.”
	“I don’t mind if you don’t.”
	When the ogre and her compatriots howled and shrieked like coyotes fighting over a fat, roasted pig, Chiyo risked a peek. The driver blocked the door as he talked evenly to the Alsantian monsters, whose disheveled disguises were rapidly disintigrating in their rage, and could now only fool the fools of this world. She cracked the window.
	“You didn’t ask them for tickets!”
	“Of course I did,” said the driver. “No one boards my bus without tickets.”
	 “Your superior will hear of this,” snarled the ogre.
	“God above already knows when I wake up, wipe my butt, and go to bed,” said the old driver. “But I doubt he’s listening to this foolish conversation. Look, there’s still time to get your tickets.”
	When the ogre growled, Chiyo lowered her eyes and cowered in the seat. The doors closed with a hydraulic hiss, the overhead lights came on, and the radio crackled around the already crackly voice of Louis Armstrong.
	The driver hummed along for about a minute before he backed the bus out. “Next stop, Morwin Station.” Though the passengers clapped, and Chiyo broke a nervous smile, she only sat up halfway, and dared to bring half of her eyeballs over the window sill. When the pack of Alsantian monsters sprinted out of the Greyhound station, for the ogre and the man it was a futile gesture that ended with them flailing their arms and swearing in the tongues of two worlds so creatively that even muffled by the glass, Chiyo's ears pinked—but the wolfish man and woman were a nose away from overtaking the bus, as if they were skilled in catching large, faster-moving prey.   
	The soldier moved back to his seat. “That was cold." He smiled at Chiyo, then added, “it all worked out.” He leaned back and closed his eyes. “It was nice to meet you, but I get up at four tomorrow. Good luck getting where you’re going.”
	Though it was a bumpy ride at first, with a series of wide turns and idles at lights, when they exited onto Highway 96, their journey leveled off to a smooth shot. 
	“Young lady." The old voice carried as if the driver sat beside her. Though several on board fit that description, none looked up from their conversations. 
	Using the posts and overhead straps, Chiyo walked towards the driver.
	“Chiyo?” asked Berangere.
	 Chiyo glanced at Aito. Berangere was a good, sweet girl, if a bit of a know-it-all, but she was from this world. She needed reassurance, not understanding.
	“It’s ok,” said Chiyo. “I have a question for the driver.”  
	After making her way to the front of the bus, the driver said, “I’ll be brief. I don’t like my passengers to stand.”
	“I don’t mind. Thank you for helping us.”
	“I did no such thing.”
	“Yes, you did. Those people...”
	When he cut her off, her annoyance at this second interruption began to outweigh her sense of indebtedness, and it may have showed in her face, for his eyes in the rearview mirror, already with crow's feet from age, crinkled under the weight of a sneer. “Even in our world, the ones chasing you are less and more than human, and if you called them people, they would laugh like hyenas and eat you to keep the joke going.” 
	“You are Alsantian.”
	“Foolish girl,” said the Alsantian, “we may not be the only ones, even here. Do not be so free.”
	She leaned closer. “Can you take us to Alsantia?”
	“This bus goes very near the door,” he said. “Do you have the prince?”
	Though the highway still carried them smoothly on, when Chiyo's heart palpitated, her footing faltered, her hand tugged tight on the overhead strap, and she stammered her honest reply, though she did not yet know if she should trust this Alsantian. “No.”
	“No?” he hissed. “You left your post!”
	“We did not,” she snapped, then regained her composure. “Why should I trust you?”
	“When you’re victorious, trust no one. When you’re lost, trust someone.” Though the Alsantian proverb didn’t indicate which side he was on, the apt quotation so fit their situation that she felt not only understood, but more relaxed, as if a grave authority spoke directly from antiquity, telling her to trust this old Alsantian. There was also a humbler and saner voice in the back of her mind insisting that villains could also have empathy, that just because the driver empathized didn’t mean that their interests were aligned. 
	“You’re right,” she said.
	“Right? What about?”
	“We can’t talk here. I’ll tell you at Morwin Station.”
	“Will your friends be there?” Chiyo’s heart skipped another beat. “I mean those animals.”
	“They might be.”
	“Go back to your seat, young lady. I wouldn’t talk about anything real back there, if you know what I mean.”
	“We won’t. Only one of my friends would know what I was saying, though the other has had glimpses.” 
	The driver grunted. She made her way back by the posts and overhead straps. Berangere's hard stare felt like it drilled through to the other side.
	“What did you say to him?”
	“Nothing.”
	“It was definitely something. That was long enough to sum up the Deathly Hallows.”
	“I asked how long this trip was. I wanted to see if they said anything about us.”
	When Berangere looked uncertain, Chiyo realized she no longer trusted her and would scrutinize everything from then on. “Did they?”
	“If they did, he didn’t say. They didn’t exactly make a good first impression.”   
	“We should get some rest,” said Aito, coming to her rescue. “I could have told you, Chiyo—this trip is six hours.”
	“Six hours!” said Berangere. “I should have eaten more at Santi’s. I’m hungry again.” 
As she rifled the magazines slid in the pocket on the back of the chair in front of her, she 
held up each one—while there were no takers for the Gideon's Bible, Aito took the Sudoku,
and when Bernegere was left with an overappreciated Archie comic book that had been read to tatters and a ruffled Draden Times dated September 22nd, 20XX, Chiyo snatched both.
	“Rude,” said Berangere. “That doesn’t leave me anything.”
	“You have the Bible.”
	“Read it. Boring. This one doesn’t even have the good stuff.”
	“Berangere." Chiyo had a note of trepidation in her voice. “What’s the date today?”	“Well...it was the twentieth, but I guess it’s the twenty-first by now.” When Chiyo held up the paper, Berangere grabbed it back. “This must be a joke.” 
	Chiyo laid the paper between them, but Aito yanked it away, and she had to lean over Berangere to gawk at the blazing Rockham carnage, flanked by interviews with shocked witnesses, and six black and white columns of print and photos supporting the headline spelling it out in black and white, which she read again in denial: EXPLOSION ROCKS ROCKHAM, with a smaller--but still all caps--subtitle, PROGRESSIVE SCIENCE CENTER, THE DESERA INSTITUTE, SAID TO BE GROUND ZERO. When Aito released the paper, Chiyo took the ruffled paper back into her lap and scanned for anything that might reveal this newspaper to be a fraud: the very ordinary table of contents, a corner piece on corrupted voting machines, and two more columns of professional prose, continued on page A6, that did their best to distill the emotions of the chaotic scene into impersonal terror:
	At 4:30 PM today, an explosion sheared the top from The Desera Institute and leveled surrounding buildings in a one block radius. 
	While there are no active fires, responders are still treating burn victims, as well as those injured by glass ejected from shattered windows, and the casualty tally is unknown. 
	Uber driver Steve White witnessed the explosion. “It was like glass and fire were raining.” While White claimed to witness wild animals fleeing the scene, this report could not be corroborated, and he was later treated for a concussion and smoke inhalation.  
	
	“That’s crazy.”
	“What if it’s real?” said Berangere.
	"How could it be real?" scoffed Aito, but he looked sidelong at Chiyo.
	“Somebody left it to warn us off," said Chiyo, "possibly the driver.”
	“So he did say something to you.” Berangere's eyes narrowed.
	“He may have—I’m not sure. What he said was so vague, it wasn't even advice.” 
Berangere rolled her eyes and Chiyo stopped talking and pretended to look at tomorrow's music reviews in the entertainment section. 
	“What do we do?” asked Aito.
	“Does it matter? We're going to Pelhurst.”
	“I lied, Berangere,” said Aito. “Or rather, I fed misinformation, because I thought one of our group might be passing information to the other side. Our destination is Rockham.”
	“What about Loren?”
	“We’re meeting the others in Morwin Station.”
	“Is the Mansion in Rockham?”
	 “It’s no Mansion, but a place sacred to us." This was no lie if by 'us' he meant only Chiyo and Aito.    
	“Why are we going there?” said Berangere. “We’re finally free of the Elderliches.”
	“Are we free? On a day when the Elderliches were conspicuously absent, we were attacked--what if the Elderliches were our shields?”
	“That protection isn't free—something will be expected.”  
	“We can stay up agonizing about it, or we can get some sleep.” When Chiyo stuffed the newspaper back in the forward seat pocket, reclined her seat, dimmed the overhead, and read the Archie, the others followed suit, leaning back to make the best of their limited recreation.
	Chiyo awoke holding the comic, which had crunched and crinkled in her restless sleep. Despite the meager light of a few overheads, they hurtled through a morning so dark that the glimmer sparking on the horizon streaked a charcoal blue sky. After stuffing the Archie away, she scrunched even further into her seat, turning on her side and pinching her eyes shut. 
	In her dreams, Conrad had shiny cross-hatched Archie Andrews hair and the letter C stitched to his big blue vestments, and Chiyo’s hair was a luxurious black stripe like Veronica Lodge; when Conrad squirmed in the blue wool, and his face freckled, then mottled into a pocked brown and eyeless wiggle, she exulted in being the cause of blame, and her shadow slithered proud and powerful. She woke, hiccupping and weepy, to the bus hurtling through a lighter gray, and she filled in two medium Sudokus--one neat and right, one eraser-torn and wrong--before she was able to fall back asleep.
	She woke a third time to a cloudy blue window, and the louder sound of a lower gear. As she raised her seat, she saw the stop sign, and the meshed traffic that wouldn't give them an opening until the last bumper passed through the intersection, when the bus lurched right and rolled down a narrow residential street. 
	Chiyo shook Aito and Berangere. “Wake up.”
	“Gimah?” blurted Aito incoherently.
	“If the Rockham hasn't left, we'll have less than five minutes to change buses. Pull yourselves together.”
	“They have to gas, Chiyo. And board new passengers.”
	“Boarding didn’t take long in Draden.” 
	When the Pelhurst pulled into Morwin Station, the Rockham bus was parked in the adjoining gate. Its door was closed, the lights were off, and no one could be seen through the windows.
	“Stand by the gate,” said the driver. “Normally, you’d have fifteen minutes, but this isn’t a normal day.” Then he entered Morwin Station without giving them a backward glance.
	“Where’s Loren?” asked Berangere.
	Aito said, “well, the bus is here, so they weren’t blown up.”
	“Yet,” said Chiyo. 
	“What do you mean?” asked Berangere. “That newspaper was a joke.”
	“You’re probably right,” said Chiyo. “There’s no time travel here.”
	“”Here?’” asked Berangere. “That’s a funny thing to say.”
	“It’s good to keep an open mind.” While Chiyo had never seen any deliberate and calculated time travel, a time shift was one consistent side effect of breaching between worlds. While the temporal leak usually only displaced you a few minutes into the past or future, sometimes you leaped a whole day. Though the time variance was small, and the risk of gate travel was grave and exponential, a few cagy opportunists exploited this time discrepancy to their benefit in two worlds, not only in cheating at sports gambling and the investment market, but in gathering intelligence and accelerating coded messages. For some reason, the well-meaning heroes that crossed back and forth to rewrite tragedies were invariably frustrated, or if any had succeeded, they did not brag about their victory.
	  “Why isn’t he coming back? What if you’re wrong about him, Chiyo?”
	“I never said anything about him, Aito.”
	“You said something to him.”
	“Where’s Loren?” Berangere repeated. 
	“Bear!” Berangere turned, ran, and clasped Loren in a huge hug that lived up to her unwanted nickname, lifting her friend a few inches off of the blacktop.
	Chiyo nudged Aito, and he nudged back. 
	While she was glad to see Loren, Akachi, Lucien, and Michel, the fox was with them. Just when they had learned which Elderlich was the traitor, the Holy Foyer window was broken, and they were unable to report back to Alsantia, and Chiyo was relieved when their hands were forced, for she did not like sleeping under the same roof as the traitor fox, who had led who knows how many Alsantians to ogre dinner plates and the bowls of their depraved human lapdogs. 
	Vieno's big beaming smile would have told an idiot something was wrong, for not only was this no situation for smiles—this was neither field trip nor family vacation, and they were neither school nor family—it was not an expression made with Vieno's face in mind. “Hello, my Animalytes.” 
	The bald, white bearded driver exited the station and opened the door of the Rockham bus. “You can board,” he said. “I’ll be your driver until Rockham.”
	Though the twinkle in Vieno’s eyes flickered out, the corpse of her smile remained. “How fortunate.”  She boarded first, stepping to the back, and the children followed her to adjacent seats.
	When Lucien, Akachi, and Michel exited Morwin Station holding Cokes, this was not, in and of itself, disturbing, but Michel’s other arm held Akachi, and Oji was nowhere to be seen.
	After they boarded, Chiyo snapped, “Where’s Oji?”
	“I’m happy to see you too,” said Akachi.
	Chiyo closed her eyes in frustration. “Oji is one of us. Where is he?”
	“He’s somewhere in here.” Michel's arm-locked hand felt along her vestment for the cat. “Don’t worry.”
	“Animals aren’t allowed,” added Akachi. “Let him be, Michel. If he shows himself, we have to leave him here.”
	 Other boarders included a half-dozen young men in Rockham basketball jerseys, two nuns in black habits, three backbacking college students from the Pelhurst bus, and two children a few years younger than the Animalytes. After the doors closed with a creaking hiss on the half empty seats, the bus backed out and headed for the highway.  
	Chiyo debated showing the paper to Vieno. She wasn’t sure why she took it from the Pelhurst, as her friends from this world would think it an elaborate prank, and she and Aito already understood its message. Would spooking Vieno be a good thing? Could she be tricked into revealing some crucial intelligence? Or was accepting Vieno's illusions the only thing keeping the fox from showing its claws?
	 “Will this change our plans?” Chiyo held out the crumpled newspaper.
	Vieno scanned the wrinkled article, a bemused smile on her face. “How long would you have kept your secret?” She looked at Chiyo over the rumpled edge of the Draden Times. “I don't mean the newspaper.”
	“It was never a secret.” Chiyo flushed, and sweat trickled down her spine. “Not compared to what’s curled up behind you, or what you've wound up for the others. After Hanne brought us here, she ordered us only to talk about the events of each day. Though she never asked us to conceal our origins, by following that command we looked out for the welfare of our friends.” 
	“What’s wound up for the others? Do you mean us?” asked Lucien. “What’s going on, Chiyo?”
	When the rear windows were suddenly seared by the tailgating glare of another Greyhound, Chiyo took a few steps back to press her face against the window.
	Hanne was at the wheel of the Pelhurst Greyhound, her shout muffled by the windshield. When Njal waved through the glass at Chiyo, as if telling her to get back, she dashed to her seat, and threw herself over Michel just before the Pelhurst rammed the Rockham, sending them a quarter spin, and knocking the other passengers into the forward seats. As the bus teetered, they reached for the overhead straps, but when the Rockham had spun perpendicular to the Pelhurst, its bumper gave them such a solid tap that they rocked again, recoiling back into their seats as it came to rest.
	The first to regain her feet, Vieno swayed woozily and bent a hooked finger toward the windows, which splashed inward and drenched everyone. When Vieno leaned over Chiyo to seize Michel's soaking sleeve, Akachi locked arms with her friend, and Chiyo clutched one armrest, hooked her knees under the other, and hunkered down over the blind girl. Though the Elderlich's face twisted into a white-lipped snarl, and she clawed at Akachi's robes and Chiyo's hair, they both clung obdurately, and the Elderlich stepped back from their blockade, curled her lips into a predatorial hunger, and touched Loren. 
	Loren melted quicker than the windows, her robes dissolving to a puddle and her pink face and hands liquefying to red-gold fox. While she still had her eyes, when Vieno growled, they were backlit with a red glare, and she scurried out the window. The Elderlich then leaned down until her snarling smile loomed over their faces. “Bring him to the galonedi unilohisdi if you want your friend." After Vieno also poured into fur and paws, a silver fox jumped to a headrest, then cleared the window.
	When the door opened with a hydraulic hiss, the scowling driver stomped outside. With the windows melted clean away—leaving neither jaggedness nor residue—they could hear him vent on Hanne and Njal. “There was plenty of room,” he shouted. Their weak mutter not only incensed him, it spiked his volume to the point of hoarseness: “for both of us. If you can't share a road, you should have followed.” At another low mutter from Njal, he rejoined, “you have to take them on the Pelhurst.”
	Berangere said, “we have to go after Vieno. She wants to leave Loren!”
	“They don’t know she’s gone.” said Aito, with an irritable tone. The boy spoke increasingly often of finishing their mission and forsaking this half-living world and its noise pollution, horrible food, and tainted colors. He was homesick for Alsantia.
	“What are you talking about?” asked Lucien.
	Berangere looked at him in disbelief. “Vieno kidnapped Loren.”
	“Vieno? Loren?”
	“Did you get hit on the head!?” Berangere shouted through tears, then wiped them away as she bent down over Lucien's head with a solicitous look, hoping her words were not true. Chiyo knew she would find no wound, as the hole in his memory would not show.
	Chiyo and Aito looked at each other. While difficult to explain even on Alsantia, only one on this world remembered Loren, and that raised an insurmountable barrier to understanding. 
	Since Loren and Vieno were foxes in truth, not only their human bodies, but the entirety of their identities—including their memory in others—were illusion. When the enchantment was dispelled, it wasn't just that the borrowed shape changed, but a person vanished in the memory and society that they influenced. Unfortunately for Berangere, noticing Loren's absence not only attested to the inextricable ties of their friendship but pointed to a fragility in her house of memory, which had become a house of cards. Since Lucien had shared only a few hundred words with Loren in the entirety of their lives, he still had a sense of self with those memories subtracted, but Berangere and Loren were best friends, and to remove one from the other might lead to the collapse of memory and self. While her memory of the girl might eventually fade, Berangere would be a lonely shadow of herself without Loren, who was her counterpart in every conversation, every moment of play, and every waking hour, week, and day. With Loren dissolved, Berangere might dissolve as well. 	
	“Yeah, who’s Loren?” said Aito.
	Chiyo punched him, saying, "“don’t you dare. We have to bring Berangere.”
	"We're not taking her," scoffed Aito.
	Akachi said, “you’re not leaving me halfway to Rockham either.”
	“We can’t take them all."
	“What are you talking about, Aito,” said Lucien.
	“It's not up to us. We'll take them until the Prince or the elders say otherwise,” said Chiyo.
	“The Elderliches?”
	“What about them?” Aito pointed at the Elderliches, who were still arguing with the driver. As they had finally raised their volume to match his, their shouting match drowned out the murmurs on the bus, and the children huddled closer together.	
	“Who cares?” asked Berangere. “They want to leave Loren.” Keeping her head down, she snuck past the passengers. 
	“Who’s Loren?” asked Akachi.
	“You don’t remember her either?” asked Michel. “Why don’t they remember her, Chiyo?” 
	Chiyo rolled her eyes, though it was wasted on Michel. It was too much to explain, and mostly guesswork. Perhaps the blind girl, not being dependent on visual cues, organized her memory differently; or perhaps, since Michel was never deceived by sight, she never internalized the illusion and had only ever interacted with Loren the fox. The short of it was that Michel was immune because she didn't know any better.  However, Michel knew Loren better than she did herself, for unless Chiyo was mistaken, Loren never knew she was a fox.
	“This is your fault.” Aito looked squarely at Chiyo. “If things go south, I blame you.” Then he followed Berangere, Lucien, and Akachi, who clutched Michel. As Chiyo scrambled after, she peeked through the gaping windows at the argument, which wasn't showing any signs of dying out. She still had the newspaper rolled up and creased between her clenched fingers.  
	The first glimmers of sunrise streamed across the pebbly ground. Their shadows stretched between scraggly junipers and pines as they dashed past sagebrush and through bluegrass. Chiyo gritted her teeth—because she disliked the thought of Lockwood Desert's cacti, tarantula, vultures and rattlesnakes, she and Aito had decided to bus hours longer to Rockham.  When four ravens perched on a juniper tree looked at them sidelong--seeming like cyclops creatures, more one-eyed shadow than animal--their hoarse song to morning sent shivers down Chiyo’s back. 
	As Aito ran like his life depended on it, the others loped along at a pace for which their cloistered lives at The Mansion left them unprepared, and in their meandering sprint over the pebbly ground, Chiyo not only no longer knew which way they were going, or even which way were the buses. but when the sun inched higher, she realized the path they were following was only Akachi and Michel’s merged shadow. 
	As the rising sun banished the cold morning, shadows scurried from the endless desert floor, and Aito headed over the red sands and black pebbles toward a mesa girded by fairy chimneys. Fairy chimneys, also called hoodoos, are stone columns jutting up in rocky, temperate deserts, and mesas are vast stone plateaus at the top of sheer rocky walls. The combination of an enormous mesa circled by possibly a hundred hoodoos looked like an ancient coliseum.
	Though the mesa and its hoodoo cage were so immense that the low sun was blocked by this awesome stone formation, it was still miles away. When Chiyo called to Aito, the boy doubled over, put his hands to his knees, and panted.
	Having kept an easy pace behind Akachi and Michel, Chiyo used her saved strength to jog to Aito. “We can’t run all the way there. It’s farther than it looks.”
	“What if they’re chasing us?”
	They turned around as one. Though the pebbly sand stretched to the far off horizon,
when Chiyo blinked, the black pebbles and red sand fused into dark, glassy water. When the lake again dissolved into sand and stone, she told herself it was a mirage.
	“If they do, Lockwood might take care of them for us,” she said.
	“They’re definitely coming,” said Aito, “and I hope you're right about that. I don’t mind taking it easy, if that’s what you mean.”
	“Are we going there?” asked Akachi. 
	“Is that where Loren is?” chimed in Berangere.
	“If that’s where we’re going,” said Lucien glumly, “I’m definitely walking, otherwise I'll keel over climbing up that thing.”
	“I’m with Lucien,” said Akachi. “We'll save our strength.”
	They continued over the desert floor, stopping now and then to dump rocks and sand from their shoes. 
	“Is it a Santi’s?” said Michel. <
	When everyone laughed weakly, Akachi said, “anyone hungry? I grabbed Vieno’s bag.” In their flight, Chiyo had not noticed the scraggly white plastic bag dangling from Akachi’s free hand. Opening it now, Akachi took three candy bars, split them in half, and gave the extra share to Michel; then she monitored the water carefully, pulling each away after a meager gulp, so that they had one and a half bottles when they continued onward.
	After Chiyo had the last swig of the third water bottle—though it was undoubtedly backwash, she steeled herself to the swallow out of necessity—it dropped from a hand nerveless from hunger, thirst, and exhaustion. "Hey!" Akachi stooped to pick it up. “We'll need this if we find water.” 
	Oji leaped from Michel’s sleeve, swatted the bottle from Akachi’s fingers, 
and seized it before it hit the ground. Turning on his back, the cat held the bottle between his paws until the last drops trickled into his mouth.
	“We forgot Oji,” said Akachi.
	“He was sleeping,” said Michel. 
	“He’s only a cat,” said Lucien. “Save it for us.”
	“No,” said Chiyo. “He’s one of us. Give me a bottle, Akachi.”
	When Akachi reluctantly held out the half-full bottle, Chiyo fed it to the ginger cat carefully. When Oji was done, the water level had barely gone down at all.
	“Do we have anything a cat might eat?” asked Aito.
	“Maybe jerky?” said Akachi. Though Oji sniffed at the jerky and grimaced, the cat chewed at a tough mouthful as they continued their long walk toward the formation. Oji now trotted beside them, at times sprinting ahead, then coming back, and all the while masticating the stubborn mouthful of dried meat.
	 Though it was clear to reasonable people that ancient artists sculpted fairy chimneys, the humans of Earth denied their common sense and told themselves air friction and sand erosion caused it all. In the case of the galonedi unilohisdi, it was super obvious that a conscious mind had crafted it, for the fairy chimneys circling the painted mesa marked a spiral staircase around the towering plateau; each hoodoo was a foot taller than the previous one, and a sojourner that shimmied up the shortest hoodoo might ascend the series of hoodoos that ringed the humongous mesa, terminating in a small ledge and steeply ascending path to the plateau.
	At least, this is what they were told in their escape instructions, should they ever have to brave Lockwood Desert to this derelict gateway, the worst alternative among many unpleasant last ditch plan Bs. It seemed Oji had also received this communication, for on reaching the shortest hoodoo, he scampered up, then leaped to the next fairy chimney.
	Three buzzards circled tightly and screeched greedily.
	Since Berangere was the tallest and strongest, the others helped her up the first hoodoo, and she grasped Aito's outstretched arms from above as the others pushed from behind. Aito and Berangere raised Akachi together, and soon all five stood on the shortest hoodoo, which was also the widest, at five feet wide. Scampering from hoodoo to hoodoo, Oji soon disappeared behind the mesa.
	In their haste to be done with the terrifying stunt, they ascended too quickly, though the hoodoos tapered as they climbed, so that soon no more than two might climb together. As each step meant a short split over the gaps between hoodos, Chiyo's calves and groin tightened from the strain of putting all her weight down on one foot, time after time, until they were near the top and encountered a worse difficulty to overcome.
	While Akachi and Michel had ascended side by side thus far, the last three hoodoos were no more than a foot wide, so that the climber must walk alone the last steps. While it was a small kindness that the blind girl could not see the hundred foot plunge to the sands, in that moment no one wanted to be her eyes, and there was a profound silence. 
	“Why did we stop?” said Michel. “Are we there?”
	“The next steps are only wide enough for one. You have to go yourself.”
	“How?” Michel shook her head, then her body shook. “Just leave me here.”
	“Leave you? You’d starve, if you didn’t fall to your death.”
	“I can help,” said Chiyo. “She'll cross between us, holding my hands in front and Akachi's in back, so that if she slips to one side, we could pull her back or ahead.”
	“That sounds impossible.”
	“It will work,” said Chiyo, “as long as we don't stand still. We must do it fast and together, or not at all.”
	“I won’t have you dying for me,” said Michel.
	“We’re not leaving you to die, either,” said Akachi. “We’d climb down and hike to the road before that, Michel.”
	“There’s nothing for us there, Akachi. Go on, and leave me here.”
	“No more talking,” said Chiyo. “Or we'll talk ourselves out of it. It will be all over in ten seconds. I’ll go first. Michel, remember that I’m walking backwards, and don’t let go of my hands or Akachi’s. What are you doing, Michel?” Michel had frozen in place. “Now, Michel.” When Michel took a shaky step forward, Chiyo backpedaled, nearly slipping as her straining leg found purchase on the next hoodoo, then by an act of miraculous human locomotion, repeated it several more times until they collapsed on the ledge of the mesa.
	They sprawled on the ledge for several minutes, panting and trembling, then continued up the gentle slope to the mesa, which had a glassy sandstone surface blindingly illuminated by the sun. Towards the center was a darker splash of reds and blues, though it might have been another mirage, spots swimming in her eyes from exhaustion, dehydration, and arid desert air.
	“Do you see that?” asked Chiyo.
	“Yes,” said Aito. “That’s it.”
	“Where is the keeper?” said Chiyo.
	“That’s up to him, isn’t it?” said Aito.
	With tears in her eyes, Berangere turned in a circle, as if there was another hoodoo staircase to climb. “Why did we come here? Where’s Loren?”
	“Vieno said she’d meet us,” said Aito. “We have to find Oji.”
	“Why? You won't give him to her,” said Chiyo.
	“Has our mission changed?”
	“Then tell her.”
	“Shh!” he said. “There he is!” The ginger cat was nearly invisible against the red stone until shadows passed over the mesa. One shadow hurtled back and forth, while the others scudded slowly, cast by the skeletal clouds wrung from the deep blue, as if twisted toward the red and blue mesa pattern. The rapid shadow proved to be a grotesquely ungainly buzzard, whose tight swoops passed back and forth like a pendulum. When the clouds unrolled over the sun and darkened the plateau, Oji’s ginger coat contrasted starkly to the brick-red mesa. 
	As they neared the center, Chiyo saw that the galonedi unilohisdi was well-named; literally “paint gateway,” in the Cherokee language, this ancient mosaic was once entirely semi-precious stones, but as the years went by, the gaps were filled with chalk, shells, bottle caps, and whatever other detritus of the right color could close the gaps and keep the pattern intact. While the paint gateway was now a junkyard mosaic, Chiyo hoped it could still carry them to Alsantia. 
	“I see Loren and Vieno!” Before anyone could answer, Beranger dashed to the center, reached out her hand, and dissolved into red and blue sand splashing the central spiral of the mosaic. 
	“Bear!” The scream shivered from the shadow of two lonely fairy chimneys standing like smokestacks next to the pattern's spiral hub. Before Vieno pulled Loren back behind the hoodoos, the girl’s face curled into a maze of grief and disbelief.
	When Oji reached the galonedi unilohisdi, he glanced back, then stood on his hind legs; though his paws and kitten feet became light brown hands and feet, and his ginger fur became a red and blue swirl nearly blending in with the pattern, the boy looked through deep green cat’s eyes and his ginger hair stuck out in feline tufts. Or like the points of a crown, Chiyo thought. 
	When he charged on all fours with a ferocious, leonine roar, the children backpedaled, as one, into the suddenly swollen and fluttering shadow that consumed them, and into Chiyo, who fell on her back just as the vulture clung to her head, its green wings a flapping shroud, her cheek burning and her eyesight smeared from the flash of its claws.
	Chiyo screamed. Though she clawed and punched back, the vulture seemed to sneer around its shrieks.
	When the boy that was Oji pounced, the vulture came away like a clump of seaweed, leaving one of Chiyo's eyes sticky with blood, and the other wet with tears of fear and agony. Though her vision was half what it once was, before she drifted into unconsciousness, the vulture's feathers seemed to part like a curtain, then dissolve, making way for another tall boy.

Chapter Five

	Though blood seeped from the guardian’s scalp, he returned Oji's glare, along with a lucid, supercilious grin. Having been a cat all his life, and human only a few days at a time, it was natural for Oji to narrow his eyes and flatten his ears, but the round, human ears would not accomodate him—though like ghost pains he felt them flatten—and persisted in sticking out. As he grew angry with the buzzard guardian, his weak human cheek crinkled where whiskers should have wagged.  The nuances of his rightful feline face stripped away, his power of expressions was so blank, so human, that he felt see-through.
	With an effort, Oji pulled himself together. Not without error and thoughtlessness on his part, Chiyo had become dreadfully injured, while the others were dragged here from their safe, secluded lives without knowing what drove them to their unearthly destination, where they now knelt in a circle around their friend, whose gore oozed from a swath ripped from Akachi's sleeve.
	“Why attack her, Kuto?”	
	“She is on the wrong side, your highness. In more than one way. She is a stranger, a spy, and an Alsantian.” When the deadly creature fawned, he writhed, and despite being in a pool of his own blood on the brightly cluttered mosaic, that menacing shudder made them inch away, as if the skulking malingerer still had the strength to swoop. 
	Though a good king would pity a broken traitor, Oji felt only contempt for a broken bird. Moreover, the boy's reptilian humility scraped as it slithered, as if he was more toad or snake than vulture. The two-faced vulture boy so set Oji's teeth on edge, that though the boy showed the respect due a prince, he felt very much on his guard.
	“Not only are you all those things,” said Oji, “but you attacked one under my protection. Should I show no mercy?”
	“Forgive my simple mind, your highness,” simpered Kuto. “I believed this large force could mean you little good.” 
	“They are children!”
	“A boy may become king in more than one way,” smirked Kuto. “And some children do evil to cats, birds, and each other. Just as you, the stronger, chew on the thought of doing me evil.”
	Oji was livid.	He dearly wanted to prove Kuto right. “Get up.”
	“I fear I am too weak, your highness. Your wound has nearly unmade me.”
	“You are not allowed to die,” said Oji. “I forbid it. Activate the galonedi unilohisdi, then die if you must.”
	“Blood was spilled,” said Kuto. “The first duty of the guardian. Before you pass over, it must be remade.”
	"Why would that be hard? We have plenty of red, and I know where we can get a lot more.” Oji looked down haughtily on Kuto.
	Kuto’s wet eyes—black pupils set not in whites, but stony grays—shifted to a vulture’s thirsty gaze, then his face shriveled; when he scratched around the sticky wound, drying blood flaked off, and his sickening hack not only cleared his throat, it cleared a few feet around him as the others made room. “I can help, your highness,” His pale, parched face looked to one side. “Only bring me water, or I may faint.”
	If Oji was a boy more than a few days at a time, he may have foreseen what would happen, but though he was a sentient, talking cat, he was still a cat at heart, and while cats are patient hunters, they have not the timeless patience of vultures. Once prey becomes food, a cat has no more reason to scheme, and having defeated his enemy, Oji took Kuto at face value, and enjoyed lording it over the wounded bird. But vultures scheme from the birth to the grave, having become so familiar with the grave that they dip their beaks in it to dine on the departed, and thus have little fear of death, but much respect of it, much more than Kuto had for this prince. Because vultures feed on beggars and kings, animals and humans, on the recently departed and on the putrifying, he looked at Oji like you might look at a softening cheese.
	When Oji scowled and reached for the bag, Kuto sprang to his feet, tripped Oji with a sweep of his leg, then grabbed the hood of Akachi's vestment and held a kilikku to her neck. Based on the intricate etching of the stone machete, which resembled a locust at rest, Oji had misjudged not only Kuto's rank, but his calling.
	“You are Vashna‘s creature.” Oji's hands had half-changed in his fall, so that when he pointed to underscore his accusation, a claw jutted out.
	“What if I am? We have waited for our rightful prince far too long. So long that some started dreading your return and worked their own will on Alsantia. Stand aside, young prince.”
	“She is not my subject,” said Oji. “She is a pawn from this world.”
	“You think me a fool!” sneered Kuto. “I smell Alsantian blood. And if they are not all Alsantian, they are steeped in Alsantia. Just look at their absurd garb.” The Animalyte vestments were in a style copied from ancient murals on the inner walls of Eldengard—the livery of Druard, the Shining Scion, first king of Alsantia.
	As Kuto backed toward the hoodoos, Oji advanced, though he let his steps fall out of sync so as not to tempt the other boy to use his kilikku. Kuto swayed in his faltering retreat; the back of his head and neck were wet with blood, and his black eyes wavered holding Oji’s gaze.
	"It's not too late for me. And if you believe in me, it's not too late for you."
	“Too late, too soon, it matters not—you will never be king in Alsantia.”
	When a white fox scurried from the gap between the hoodoos, and a larger, silvery fox scampered after, Oji’s eyes flickered by reflex to track their dash toward the mosaic. Though he tried to shift his attention back to Kuto imperceptibly, so as not to give away their position, Kuto leered, erupted with a mocking laugh, and said, “you think to distract me with such a simple ruse, my prince?” 
	“There was no ruse,” said Oji. “I have grown weary, perhaps—you need rest as well.”
	“Vashna will provide.”
	“The pattern is broken, and this is not Alsantia.”
	“To all things, there is a balance.” Kuto stopped on the outside arm of the spiral opposite where he and Chiyo were wounded. “Blood for blood,” he said,” drawing the kilikku across Akachi’s palm with a swift slash, “and an eye for an eye.” When he turned the kilikku toward his own eye, Oji leaned forward and outstretched his hand, but the twist of the sharp blade was too quick, and the eyeball dropped to the galonedi unilohisdi. 
	When the pattern brightened, the sand, stones, shells, bottle caps, blood drops, and even the chalk lines seemed to lift from the mesa, and when they shook, it closed the eye of the world.