Spindlewind doesn't hear me. He runs, his eyes focused ahead, narrowly being missed by sparks of lightning.
"Spindlewind?"
Then he is gone.
Jake and I huddle in the tree until the storm subsides, and the black cloud rolls out of the sky. As I watch it roll away, I hear a thump below. Jake is on the ground, touching it with the tips of his fingers.
"There's still some static, but we should be safe," he says. I slide down from my branch and land beside him. My toes and fingers tingle.
Jake stands and touches my shoulder. POP! A burst of static and I can feel my hair spreading into a frizz. Jake does the same. He looks like a mad scientist. I begin to laugh at him, but he doesn't notice me. "Better get going," he says and continues forward.
I follow him. He looks for tiles, but I look for bear tracks.
"Where is it?" says Jake as we walk. "It was just--"
He stops and spins around, looking at the ground.
"What?" I say.
"The secret path. It's as I feared."
He scratches his head and notices his hair sticking up. He tries to smooth it down as he speaks.
"As you feared?" I say.
"The path has become too secret."
"Oh."
Jake takes a step in the direction where the path once led, hesitates, and looks around.
"You got us lost, didn't you?" I say, reaching in my bag and stroking Bernard's head.
"I wouldn't say that," says Jake, but he continues looking around cluelessly.
"Yeah, what would you say?"
"I don't know," says Jake. "I just wouldn't say that."
He sniffs a tree. It doesn't seem to please him. He begins to mutter.
I am a serene warrior.
Swift eyes are better than swift feet, my trainer used to tell me. I still my body and focus my energy, shutting out the sounds of Jake's muttering. To my left I see broken branches, crushed leaves, a piece of brown fur.
"This way," I say to Jake, pointing toward that direction.
"What? How do you know? Do you have a sense, you know, of the portal? Like a connection?" His eyes widen as he says it, hoping, I guess, that I have a magical connection to the thing. I shake my head.
"Bear tracks," I say. "There, there, and there." I show him the way that Spindlewind went.
"Bear tracks?" he says.
I nod.
"Why should--"
"Because I have a feeling that Spindlewind is going the same direction that we are."
I lead Jake down a new trail, one not marked by bricks or tiles, but of faint traces that most people would need a year of tracking lessons to spot. I only needed six months of lessons.
The trail leads us out of the woods and onto an open, grassy plain, one that goes on for miles, a thin grass in every direction.
"Ah, yes, this does seem familiar," says Jake. I roll my eyes.
Suddenly, up from the grass pops a boy, a young boy with a mop of curly hair and bright, purple eyes.
"Where have you come from?" says the boy. He ducks and another boy frog-hops over his back.
"And where are you going?" says the second boy, his eyes equally as purple.
A girl jumps onto Jake's back.
"And how do you expect to get there?" says the girl.
"Queen Maplewane?" I say, seeing the girl. Jake shakes her off her shoulders. She kicks him in the shin. I reach for my fire poker, but realize I dropped it during the lightning storm.
The sight of them fills me with both fear and hunger. That bread of theirs... how could I get more of it?
"They won't let me be queen anymore," says Maplewane, joining her two friends. "The others don't play nice."
"Why not?" I say.
"Because I let you get away, duh," she says. The two boys draw small bows and arrows on us.
Jake, wincing and limping, pulls on my arm. "Glass, get away from them," he says. "These bo--"
"Tweechens," interrupts Maplewane. "Might just tell you how to get where your going."
Jake narrows his eyes. "Why?"
"Because I'm bored and it isn't fair that I can't be queen anymore. It's not like I'm the one that lost the turtle." She glares at the curly haired boy.
"Not my fault. I told you!" he says.
"Shut up, Pondhopper," says the second boy. "It was your turn to keep watch."
"Was too, Puddlefoot," says Pondhopper.
"Was not!"
"Was too!"
Maplewane shrugs and rolls her head. "Ugh. You see. Nobody plays fair."
"Do you know where we are going?" I say.
"There's only one place to go out here," says Maplewane.
"Don't trust them," whispers Jake.
"The fortress is out there," says Pondhopper, pointing to the right, "at the top of the Big Fire Mountain." I see the faint outline of the mountain on the horizon.
"The fortress is over there," says Puddlefoot, pointing the opposite direction, "in the middle of Shadow City."
I look that way and see a glimmer of what looks like the mirage of a skyscraper.
"The fortress is straight ahead," says Maplewane, flicking her head behind her, where I see nothing but an endless expanse of grass. "In the Glass Desert."
"Which of you is telling me the truth?" I say.
"All of us," says Maplewane. She giggles. Pondhopper touches her on the arm and yells "You're it!". He starts running.
"No fair!" shouts Maplewane, and the three children chase each other back into the woods until they're out of sight.
"That was weird," I say. "But what did I expect?"
"You shouldn't trust them," says Jake.
But then I look down and notice the distinct mark of bear tracks. I don't know which child told me the truth, but I do know where Spindlewind went.
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