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.