Dreams are excursions into the limbo of things, a semi-deliverance from the human prison.

—Henri-Frédéric Amiel (trans. Mrs. Humphry Ward),

Amiel's Journal: The Journal Intime of Henri-Frédéric Amiel,

“December 3, 1872”

1

Leslie never had the chance to finish explaining when Katherine finally connected the dots and stood up from the couch, saying, “You told them? You told my sisters about it?”

At her questions, time froze in suspension for Leslie like the accidental time-trap in the underground vault of Cooley’s mansion, and walking away without answering her was no option at all. So her mind raced with endless scenarios of Katherine’s possible reactions (all of them bad) if she attempted to soften the matter with feigned ignorance or white lies. In the end, she knew she had no choice but to tell her the truth, even if it churned up her stomach to admit breaching Katherine’s trust in front of everyone present.

“Yeah,” Leslie said, squirming in her seat, “but they snuck it up on me, and I—”

“You told them,” she continued, “when I specifically asked you not to tell them behind my back?”

“Kathy, it wasn’t like—”

“Fuck you!” And Katherine stormed out of the family room and down the entrance hall, and Leslie followed after her, stomping up the stairs and saying that it was okay, but Katherine wouldn’t have any of it. She just said, “I trusted you, and you fucking . . . Agh! Get away from me!”

“But, Kathy, I . . . Will you just listen to me?” Leslie said, following Katherine into the upper hallway and catching her slamming the door of her bedroom just before she cleared the top step. She walked up to her bedroom door and knocked and said, “Kathy, what’s going on? Why are you acting like this?”

“Go away,” she said. “I don’t wanna talk to you.”

“Kathy, if it’s anything I can help you with, just open the door and let me help you,” Leslie said, rapping at her door again. “Kathy, come on. Open up.”

But Katherine said no more and started rummaging around in her bedroom, when up the stairs came several stomping pairs of feet.

Leslie turned and saw Celia and Madison and Colbie approaching with worried looks on their faces, so she raised a finger to her lips, and they nodded.

“Kathy, please open up,” Leslie said, rapping again on her bedroom door. “Your sisters are here with me, and you’re starting to worry them.”

“Please open up. We’re your sisters,” Celia said, knocking on her door. “You can talk to us.”

“You don’t have to tell us everything right off the bat,” Madison said, “but you need to open up to us.”

For a time, Katherine remained silent on the other side of the door, then said, “Is Colbie with you?”

Leslie looked to her daughter and said, “Yeah, she’s here.” She turned to Colbie and said under her breath, “Maybe you can talk some sense into her.”

Colbie approached Katherine’s door and said, “I’m right here, Kathy. Open up.”

So Katherine unlocked her door and opened it, revealing the wreckage she had become, her eyes red from away wiping tears, her cheeks clammy, and her long braided twin tails undone and hanging limp past her hips.

“Are you okay, Kathy?” Colbie said.

Katherine wrapped her arms around Colbie’s shoulders, clinging to her like she was clinging to the end of a dangling rope, and kissed her hard on the lips, then pulled away and flopped onto her bed and muffled her sobs into her pillows. After a time, she raised herself from the pillows and wiped away more tears, then looked over towards the shocked faces of her sisters and Leslie and Colbie, all of them crowding into her bedroom, and said, “Why are you all doing this to me?”

“Gee, I don’t know,” Madison said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Maybe because we’re just worried.”

“I’ve never seen you act like this before,” Celia added.

“I’m not acting, damn it!” she yelled. “Everything I’ve done and everything I’m doing, I’m doing for you guys, and you’re fucking it up!”

“Are you mad at us . . . for asking?” Celia said.

“Yeah, I am,” she said.

“Why are you so mad?” Madison said.

At this, Katherine stayed silent for a spell, then said, “It’s more complicated than you know.”

“What aren’t you telling us, Kathy?” Madison said.

“God, not this again,” Katherine said.

“Celia and I deserve to know, but you’re—”

“Damn it, Maddy, why can’t you—”

“Stop it! Both of you, stop!” Leslie said, getting in between the sisters before it turned into a shouting match. “Kathy, do you want us to go?”

“Yeah, just go.”

But Madison wouldn’t have it, saying, “You’re just gonna—”

“Stop it, Maddy, please!” Leslie said. “Just let it go for now. We’ll come back when she’s ready.”

Madison acquiesced and walked out of the room with Celia, followed in tow by Leslie and Colbie, but just as Colbie stepped past the threshold, Katherine said, “Colbie, wait.”

“Fine,” Madison said and exited the room with Celia, while Leslie and Colbie followed close behind.

Then Katherine said, “Colbie, wait.”

Colbie paused at the threshold and turned around, and Leslie loitered next to her daughter at the door, and Madison and Celia paused and waited at the top of the stairs.

So Katherine got up from her bed and stomped towards her door and peered into the hallway and said, “I already asked you all to go, so go already! I only asked for Colbie to stay.”

Celia and Madison went down the stairs, while Leslie said to her daughter, “Don’t worry, you can talk to me later if you want,” then took one more look at Katherine. “Don’t make my Colbie cry, okay?”

“I won’t,” she said. “Just go.”

So Leslie followed Katherine’s sisters down the stairs and back into the family room, where Roy Dolan and Connie asked her what was going on. She told them it was complicated. When Madison asked her why that was, Leslie said that Katherine had the world on her shoulders, because she was trying to be strong for the both of them, and they were making it harder on her if they worried about her. When Celia asked what she meant, Leslie said that since their mother (Lima Hearn) went away and only visited on occasion, Katherine took her responsibilities towards her family somewhat like a surrogate mother would.

Leslie then qualified her statement, saying, “I know it’s hard to understand, but try to look at it from her perspective. Katherine’s just trying to protect you.”

“From what?” Celia said.

“I can’t say,” Leslie said, “till I have Katherine’s say on it. Please, try to understand her, if you can. She’s just looking out for you two.”

“She’s our sister,” Madison said, “not our mom.”

“I know, but since your mom’s away,” she said, “Katherine’s been your surrogate mother in this house, and she’s doing everything I would do if I were in her position.”

“Mrs. Amame,” Celia said, “is the reason why our mom’s been away for so long the same reason why Kathy’s been keeping this from us?”

“Yeah,” Leslie said.

“Then why’s she talking to Colbie and not us?” Madison said.

“I don’t know for sure,” Leslie said, “but I feel that she . . .”—here, she thought of her next few words—“she can trust Colbie about it.”

At this, Madison leaned back on the sofa and said, “So she trusts your daughter more than her own sisters?”

“Don’t think about it that way,” Leslie said, and she got up from her divan and came over to their sofa and sat in between Celia and Madison and hugged them close to her. “I’m sure Kathy’s doing it for your best interests.”

“Are you sure?” Madison said.

“I’m sure.”

“Colbie’s so damn lucky,” Celia said, and wrapped her arms around Leslie’s waist. “I wish we had you for our mom. Our lives would be so much easier.”

Leslie was about to say something when Roy Dolan added, “Kendra might also be the reason why Kathy’s like this. I can’t take her home or take her to the hospital because of her condition, so I’m staying here till she wakes up. Besides, from what Kathy’s already told me, this house might just be the safest place for Kendra and for you two, till she tells us what’s going on.”

“You trust her, then?” Madison said.

Roy nodded. “Yeah.”

Leslie paused at Roy’s words, thinking about the events at the Rancaster district (and about the investigation’s pending review for termination in particular) and said, “Roy, is your department still investigating what happened in the Rancaster district?”

“Officially, yes,” he said. “Later this morning, the commissioner will put out a statement saying that they’ve found all the bodies and will investigate the rest of the area for any other clues to what’s happened. Unofficially, he’s already transferred the case to another department, so it’s out of my jurisdiction.”

“Which department?” Connie said.

“The Phantom Office,” Roy said. “Shaefer and Todd have been assigned to protect a lead witness, and the Larking brothers have been assigned to the Cairns case in connection to another case they’ve been investigating for a few weeks now.”

“What case is that?” Connie said.

“Nope,” he said, putting a finger to his lips. “That’s all I’m gonna say. Don’t tell anyone else about it, okay? I’m already in enough trouble as it is,” and then glanced at his watch.

Catching the movement, Leslie said, “Anyone else joining us?”

“Randal will be here,” he said.

Silence reigned at the mention of Randal Larking, and everyone in the family room looked at Kendra lying on the sofa, wrapped up in Katherine’s blood-colored shroud.

Leslie said, “Did you tell him what happened to Kendra?”

“I left him a message before I came here,” Roy said, “but he’s at a briefing, so he won’t know till he checks his phone afterwards. He should be here soon enough, though, so we’ll just wait,” and he looked out of the doorway at the staircase beside the entrance hall. “Do you know when they’ll come down?”

“I’ll go check,” Leslie said and picked herself up and walked out of the family room.

2

After the Larking brothers finished questioning the medical staff at the Nayland Hospital, Stephen and his younger brother Randal headed out through the automatic sliding double doors. Stephen was already on his smartphone informing Lt. Frank Shaefer, Todd Curvan, and Ronald Hamilton he and his brother were headed for the second location, till his brother stopped in the middle of the parking lot. After ending his call, Stephen turned around and saw Randal several steps behind him listening to someone on the other end of his phone call.

“What’s the matter?” Stephen said.

“It’s Kendra,” Randal said.

“What about?” he said. “Did she break up with you or something?”

“It’s from Roy Dolan,” Randal said, taking a wallet from his pocket and picking out a card.

So Stephen walked back up to him and said, “What’s going on?”

“Roy’s asked me to come to the Hearn house right away,” he said and dialed a number for a cab company. “Kendra’s there, and something’s happened to her.”

“What about the case, man? You can’t just—”

“I’m not sure how it happened,” Randal said, “but Kendra went missing from Roy’s house last night, and the Hearn sisters found her inside their house this morning. It’s your call, man.”

It took a few moments for Stephen to connect the dots, till he said, “Fuck the cab ride. I’ll drop you there myself and head out towards the boys. Just keep me informed of any developments while I’m there, got it?”

“Got it,” Randal said.

And with that, both brothers rushed towards Stephen’s car.

3

Nico and Auna and Akami and Shiromi headed back through the trees towards the yellow-brick road, where they came across a pair of dented saucepan helmets and silver platter shields and nicked forks and spoons scattered about the road. The Tweedle brothers have disappeared, and there were no signs of the Chippewa and Hopi elders, or the strange Ronald Hamilton with his Cheshire Cat mask, or the dreaming Chuang Chou, or the Crow. All were gone, save for two other personages Nico spotted (“Someone’s over there!”) lying under another tree up ahead.

The four travelers headed up the road and saw an old White Knight and a young Red Knight sleeping under a tree, both unarmed with their maces and sheathed broadswords and shields leaning against the tree, and their horse-headed helmets by their heads. The old White Knight was bald-headed and had a big handlebar mustache that kept twitching every now and then to something in his dream, and the young Red Knight was clean-shaven and had a head full of long black curls.

Both of their horses were left unattended, and when Akami and Shiromi approached them, they looked up from their morning breakfast of wild grass, shaking their manes and swishing their tails and stamping their hooves. Akami and Shriomi calmed them down, while Nico and Auna looked over the knights, checking to see if they’d awakened.

They hadn’t. Both knights seemed puckered out from their previous tussle of saucepan helmets and platter shields and giant forks and spoons down the road.

“They won’t wake up anytime soon,” Nico said, then took their sheathed swords from the tree and slung the belt straps over her shoulders.

“What are you doing?” Auna said.

“Buying insurance,” she said. “As long as they don’t wake up, they won’t know who stole them.”

“Till they wake up, that is,” Auna said under her breath.

Nico gave one of the sheathed swords to Akami and the other one to Shiromi, and they both buckled it around their waists. Then Akami guided the red horse by the reins, while Shiromi guided the white horse.

“You two know how to ride?” Akami said.

Nico and Auna shook their heads.

“It’s easy to get the hang of it,” Akami said, and she stepped on a stirrup and mounted the red horse, then reached out her hand to Auna. “You’ll be fine, don’t worry.”

So Auna gave her hand, and Akami had Auna plant her foot on the same stirrup and hoisted her up over the cantle of the saddle, where Auna slid in behind her.

Shiromi did the same, mounting the white horse and hoisting Nico over the cantle, where Nico slid in behind her on the saddle.

“Don’t get any ideas now, lover girl,” Shiromi said.

“I’m not like that!” Nico said, shoving Shiromi forward in the saddle. “Get your mind out of the gutter, geez!”

“Only if you want me to,” she said.

“Ugh, stop it!”

“Quiet, you two,” Akami said, and jerked her thumb at the two sleeping knights who somehow had not woken up under the rustle of their movements and their bickering.

Akami led the way with Auna, and Shiromi followed with Nico, and for a time, they trotted alone along the yellow-brick road, one pair in one saddle like Templar knights. As they trotted along, Nico was conscious of Shiromi’s butt bouncing against her lap with each trot of the horse and broke into a sweat.

“Having fun?” Shiromi said.

“Geez, I told you already,” Nico said, blushing in embarrassment. “It’s not like that!”

“Well, at least I am,” Shiromi said, looking back over her shoulder at Nico’s blushing face, and smiled. “I’m already wet.”

“Ugh, geez!” And Nico shoved Shiromi forward over the saddle, but this only wedged her further in Nico’s lap. “Do you have to be such a cringe-freak all the time?”

“I’m not the only one noticing,” she said, and she pointed out one of the passers by, who took a double take on the two pairs of girls riding in the same saddle, eying Shiromi and Nico, in particular.

Nico hid her face behind Shiromi’s back, and Shiromi grinned and laughed, while Auna and Akami looked back over their shoulders at the sound of their shenanigans.

“What’s going on?” Akami said.

“She won’t stop being a cringe-freak!” Nico said.

“Stop messing with her,” Akami said, glaring back at her white counterpart, “or you’ll be switching saddles with me!”

“Geez, you’re no fun,” Shiromi said, stopping her charades at the moment. “And you don’t have to be such an ass about it, Goody Two-Shoes Period-Puss!”

Along the way, they got glares from village churls and matrons, a sign of the cross from a passing abbott, winks and smiles from market girls, whistles and come-ons from shepherd lads, and even salutes from a trio of musketeers in broad-brimmed hats and blue tabards and tall riding boots with long rapiers and holstered flintlock pistols hanging from their belts. And hanging from the horns of their saddles were pouches of more flintlock pistols, blunderbusses, and even a carbine for each rider.

“Where are you going, mademoiselles?” said the leader of these musketeers.

Akami said, “We’re headed for Chess Cathedral,” and she turned to Auna sitting behind her, “for the coronation of Auna Wenger as the Queen of Hearts.”

The leader raised the brim of his hat and got a good look at the future Queen of Hearts and said, “My deepest salutations, your Highness. I am Monsieur Dolan, and these are my comrades, Monsieur Shaefer and Monsieur Curvan.”

Monsieur Shaefer and Monsieur Curvan raised their broad-brimmed hats and saluted the girls again.

“I’ll keep watch for bandits,” Monsieur Shaefer said.

“And to keep you mademoiselles from getting bored,” Monsieur Curvan said, “I’ll tell you my stories of intrigue and valor and wonder.”

“Well, if you’re into ghost stories, that is,” Monsieur Dolan said, then leaned forward and added, “Don’t believe his stories. He’s a Don Quixote with a passion for making shit up.”

“Hey, I heard that!” Monsieur Curvan said.

“I like ghost stories,” Nico said.

“Me, too,” Auna added.

“Ah, see?” Monsieur Curvan said. “There’s always a good audience around, if you’re vigilant enough seek them out.”

Monsieur Dolan humphed, while Monsieur Shaefer shook his head.

Monsieur Curvan then leaned forward and added, “Don’t mind him. He’s a bit of a grouch.”

And before Monsieur Dolan said anything scathing, Monsieur Shaefer said, “Come on. We don’t have all day,” and with that, Monsieur Curvan and Monsieur Dolan stopped their bickering and followed their more level-headed comrade in arms, and the girls followed in tow.

4

When Katherine shut her door behind her, cutting off the hum of voices echoing up the stairs, she turned to a nervous Colbie and said, “Don’t be scared. I’m not gonna chew you out or anything like that.”

She took Colbie by the hand, and they both sat on her bed, and a long lock of Katherine’s hair crept and crawled on her bed behind Colbie’s back.

“Why did you kiss me?” Colbie said.

Katherine’s grip over Colbie’s hand tightened over her fingers, and her hair edged up Colbie’s waist, drawing her eyes there, so Katherine said, “Some of it’s because of your mom, but . . .” And she struggled to find her words, so she wouldn’t give Colbie the wrong idea, thinking of a way to say it that won’t freak her out.

“But what?” Colbie said, keeping her gaze at the lock on her waist.

Again, Katherine wrestled with words, saying, “I’m . . . Ugh, it’s complicated. Colbie, is it okay if I . . . kiss you again? It’s okay if you don’t swing that way, but . . . can I?”

At first, Colbie just stared at her for several seconds, noticing Katherine’s lock of hair circling around her waist, then nodded her head. “Sure.”

So Katherine kissed her again, longer and deeper this time, and raised Colbie’s hand and pressed it to her breasts, while more locks of her hair wrapped around Colbie’s waist and snaked their way around her thighs, till Colbie pulled her hand away and looked at her for another several seconds, then at her unruly locks of hair and back at Katherine again. Colbie looked at her, Katherine felt, almost as if she was judging her, so Katherine doubled over and buried her face in her hands.

“I’m really sorry, Colbie,” she said.

“Kathy,” Colbie said, then paused for a moment as if to find her words, “do you swing that way?”

Katherine nodded with her face still in her hands, then wiped away more tears and looked at her, saying, “Are you angry?”

Colbie shook her head and stayed silent for a spell, then said, "Are you in love with me?"

“It’s your mom, Colbie,” Katherine said, turning away again. “I’m in love with your mom.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not,” she said. “I’m serious.”

Colbie stayed silent for a spell, then said, “Does she love you that way, too?”

“I don’t think so,” Katherine said, “but I wish to God she did! It would make my life a little less difficult.”

“When did this happen?”

“When I told her about what happened.”

Again Colbie paused for a spell, then said, “When did you tell her about it?”

“During your birthday,” Katherine said. “I wanted her . . . to come over, so I asked Celia to invite you and Kendra over to this house to host your birthday.”

“To keep your sisters company?”

“Right,” she said.

“So you could talk to my mom about it?”

“Right,” she said, nodding her head, while the tip of her lock of hair around Colbie’s waist started tapping on her stomach. “I said what I needed to say to her, and your mom hugged me, and I cried, and your mom kissed my forehead, and I . . . started kissing her over and over, and . . .” Katherine shook her head and said, “Your mom had the sense to stop it before it went any further. She said she’d be there for me if I ever needed to talk to her, but all I could say was I was sorry. She kept saying it was okay, but . . . I’m not so sure it was.”

Katherine cried more tears and wiped them away, while Colbie just looked at her for some moments, then said, “Do you . . .” But her words slipped away from her.

Katherine faced her. “What is it?”

“Do you still want my mom that way?” she said.

“That’s not—”

“Tell me the truth, Kathy,” she said and stood up from the bed and looked at Katherine’s eyes that were now welling up more tears. “Do you still want my mom that way?”

Katherine averted her gaze and nodded her head, saying, “I’m really sorry, Colbie. You must hate me, don’t you?”

“I don’t,” Colbie said. “I don’t hate you, I promise.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” she said. “Kathy, look at me, please.” And when Katherine did, she reached out and wiped the tears from her eyes. “You don’t have to be sorry for anything, but don’t go after my mom. Otherwise, my dad will be angry.”

Katherine said, “I’m really sorry,” and stood up to go.

But Colbie grabbed her hand and pulled her back on the bed and said, “I’m here for you now if you need to talk to me.”

Katherine sat back on her bed and squinted out more tears and choked on her words, tongue-tied for a spell, then said, “God, you’re so much like your mom.”

Yet Colbie did something her mom wouldn’t do. She first took a hold of Katherine’s lock of hair around her waist and kissed the ends of it, then cupped her hands on Katherine’s cheeks and said, “And if you need me that way, too, I won’t say no.” And Colbie expressed her words with actions, kissing her eyes, then her cheeks, then her lips, before pulling Katherine into an embrace.

And Katherine felt her heart overflowing, letting her heart stretch out its wings to flutter and lift off, and for a moment freeing her mind of her troubles. She still wanted Leslie, but Colbie was here and (for now) Colbie was hers. So Katherine wrapped her arms around Colbie’s shoulders and pulled her close to her body, letting her hair wrap more locks around Colbie’s waist, then pulled Colbie down with her over the bed and turned her over till she was on top of her, gripping Colbie’s hands past her shoulders, but then she wavered.

“Tell me to stop,” Katherine said.

“It’s okay,” Colbie said.

“Are you sure?”

Colbie nodded, and against her better judgement, Katherine kissed her forehead and then her eyes and then her cheeks and then her lips, lingering there over her mouth and looking into her eyes that were swimming with something like desire or compassion or submission. Katherine didn’t know which, but she knew Colbie wanted it this way, so she imagined her as Colbie’s mom during that Halloween party on her birthday and went on kissing her, eliciting a moan from her when she gave Colbie her first hickey on the base of her neck and causing her to suck in her stomach when her hair snaked underneath Colbie’s cardigan.

Katherine raised herself from her and looked at her bedroom door, saying, “We have to—”

But Colbie pulled her down into a lingering kiss of mingling tongues, and Katherine found herself fondling Colbie’s breasts through her cardigan, then running her hands under it and digging beneath her bra and squeezing the bare flesh of her breasts.

Colbie’s body jerked as she yelped at the tickle of Katherine’s hair between the parting of her breasts beneath her cardigan, then moaned and pulled Katherine down into another lingering kiss, till a knock rapped at the door, and both girls stopped what they were doing. Both girls were breathing hard, and Katherine felt the subtle drumming of Colbie’s heart and the rising and falling of her chest. When Katherine tried to get up, Colbie wrapped her arms around her waist and kept her there, and she noticed her crying.

“What’s wrong?” Katherine said.

“Please stay with me,” she whispered.

Katherine promised she would, so both girls sat up on the bed, crinkling the mattress beneath their combined weight, and rearranged themselves to look more presentable.

“Who is it?” Katherine said, getting up and heading towards the door and reaching out for the knob, but paused there.

Colbie stayed on the edge of her bed, looking at Katherine.

Silence reigned on the other side of the door, so Katherine said, “Leslie, is that you?” She looked to Colbie on the bed and raised a finger to her lips, then put her ear to the door and listened and heard sniffling. “Leslie . . . Leslie, are you crying?”

At her words, Colbie picked herself up from the bed and tiptoed towards the door, but stayed silent.

Then Colbie did another thing Leslie wouldn’t do; she put her arms around Katherine’s waist and put her face in between her shoulder blades, soaking the back of her shirt with tears.

“Colbie, what’s wrong?” she said.

But Colbie wouldn’t say anything. She just stayed there behind her, keeping her arms around her waist, so Katherine put her ear to the door and listened for Leslie’s reply.

“Kathy, is my Colbie with you?” Leslie said.

“Yeah,” she said. “She’s with me,” and she turned around and looked at Colbie’s shame-faced self and whispered, “Are you okay?”

Colbie shook her head.

“You want me to hold your hand?”

She nodded her head, so Katherine held Colbie’s hand and waited for her to say something to her mom.

“Mom, are you mad at me?” Colbie said.

Leslie’s reply didn’t come at once, yet in that pause between replies, Katherine figured out what was on both of their minds, and it had everything to do with Colbie, even when she was afraid to say it. She then lowered herself to Colbie’s eye level and looked at her face that was now wet with tears and said, “Colbie, don’t be afraid. I’m here for you, okay?”

Colbie nodded her head, crying more tears, and Katherine hugged her close to her body, letting her cry over her shoulder.

“I’m not mad, Colbie,” Leslie said, and more sniffling came through the door. “I just feel . . . like you don’t trust me.”

Colbie stayed silent and renewed her tears, while Katherine kept hugging her, saying, “It’s okay, Colbie. It’s okay.”

“Colbie, your father and I love you more than you know,” Leslie continued, sniffling again. “Nothing’s ever going to change that. You don’t have to hide anything from us. You don’t have to feel ashamed. Just know that we’ll always love you.”

And at her words, Colbie renewed her tears.

Katherine knew she needed her mother, so she rubbed circles behind Colbie’s back, then reached for the knob and opened the door.

On the other side of it was Leslie wiping away tears, and she crossed the threshold into the bedroom and hugged Colbie and Katherine in a group hug.

“I’m really sorry, Leslie,” Katherine said. “I take full responsibility. If you’re angry at me, if you wanna scream at me, it’s fine. I . . . I can take it.”

But Leslie shook her head and said, “You’re a good girl, Kathy. Thank you for being with her.” And she kissed Katherine’s forehead, then to Colbie: “I need to talk to Kathy for a bit.”

“You’re not gonna scream at her, are you?” she said.

“I won’t,” Leslie said.

“Don’t worry about me,” Katherine said.

Colbie looked at her mother, then at Katherine, and said, “Are you sure you don’t want me to be here with you?”

“It’s okay, Colbie,” Leslie said. “I’ll just talk to her.”

Colbie nodded and went downstairs and across the entrance hall and entered the family room, where Connie and Madison asked her what had happened, and Celia asked her if she was crying. Colbie refrained from answering their questions just as the doorbell rang. Roy Dolan went to answer it and met Randal Larking at the door, so he invited Randal into the family room to see Kendra but told him not to touch her. When he asked why, Roy explained everything to him. Then, when Randal Larking spotted an emotional Colbie at the sofa with Celia and Madison comforting her, he asked what was wrong, and Connie and the Hearn sisters said they didn’t know, but Colbie said she was okay. They all asked her if she was sure, and Colbie said she was.

5

After Stephen Larking dropped off his brother at the Hearn household, he drove on and took several streets towards the old Rancaster district, passing by the street cones blocking off the section of damage that the missing Mara Cairns had inflicted with her psychokinesis. The old district was a place of power and rumor and superstition, like Area 51 in Nevada or the Superstition Mountains in Arizona or Skin-Walker Ranch in Utah or the Devil’s tramping ground in North Carolina or the Pine Barrens in New Jersey or the Gettysburg battlefield in Pennsylvania. Larkington’s old Rancaster district was one of these weird places that the Phantom Office of the U.S. government had sealed off with magic and misinformation.

Hence, the Cairns family, Colbie Amame, the Hearn sisters, and Kendra Tellerman shared a connection to one of Nevada’s most haunted locales, all of them caught in a web that Stephen has yet to fathom, and so too were Lt. Frank Shaefer and Roy Dolan and Ronald Hamilton. Even Stephen Larking himself found himself caught in the weave of this web, tied into this mess in ways Stephen has yet to untangle if only he could find the connection linking the dead and haunted past with the living and breathing present.

He glanced at the hole in the wall as he passed by and imprinted it on his mind, so he could use it as a reference image to take him where he wanted to go: the so-called ‘second place’ Lt. Shaefer suggested in his briefing with him yesterday evening after Roy Dolan was taken off the Cairns case. Since then, Stephen allowed Lt. Shaefer to pull Todd Curvan into the fold to fill in the void left behind by Roy Dolan, just as Stephen had pulled Randal Larking and Ronald Hamilton and later on Roy and Lt. Shaefer into the fold weeks before the actions of three high school girls turned everything upside down.

“Jesus, what a mess,” he said and turned the corner and headed back towards the local Phantom Office headquarters at the Police Station, shorthand for the Larking Metropolitan Police Department, because he refused to think of it as a family-owned property even when it was named after one of his most famous ancestors, Leon Larking.

Minutes later, he turned into the Police Station’s back lot entrance and greeted the guard and parked, then opened the trunk of his car and grabbed his suitcase full of the findings he and Randal had collected over the course of their investigation and shut the trunk. He then headed straight for the sliding double doors of the back entrance of the reception, where he greeted the receptionist and headed towards the Secret Room of the Phantom Office.

He took out his access card and slid it down the access slide, opening the door, then opened it into an empty room of brutalist concrete walls and ceiling and floor with five office chairs surrounding a steel table under harsh embedded lights in the ceiling. He let the door shut itself behind him and noticed a paper plate with half a scone on it and a cup half full of cold tea and a note on the table.

He picked it up and read it aloud, saying, “‘Read me. Eat me. Drink me.—Frank & Todd.’” Then he smiled and added, “You two love playing games, don’t you?”

He put down the note and placed his suitcase at the foot of the table and took up the half-eaten scone and ate the rest of it, then took up the paper cup of tea and drank the rest of it. Afterwards, he closed his eyes and let the sweet aftertaste of the scone mingle with the soothing sweetness of the oolong tea, letting the flavors take him down the rabbit hole of daydreams and slow-wave sleep, till he opened his eyes and found Ronald Hamilton and Todd Curvan and Lt. Frank Shaefer seated on cushioned wicker chairs with two empty ones beside the tea table over a giant oriental rug and polished wood flooring with paintings of Art Nouveau flowers on paneled walls and sconce lighting illuminating the room overhead.

Out of the three men, Ronald yawned and stretched his arms, so Stephen said, “You doing okay, Ronnie?”

“I just got up from a nap, sir,” he said.

“Have a seat, sir,” Lt. Shaefer said and pointed to the tea set and small sandwiches and scones on a silver platter. “We still have some if you want any.”

Stephen sat and said, “I’m good, thanks.”

“It’s gonna be one of those briefings?” Shaefer said.

Stephen nodded.

“Where’s your brother?” Todd said.

“He’s at the Hearn house,” he said. “Roy’s asked him to look after Kendra, because something’s happened to her, and I think it might be connected to the Cairns case.”

“How so?” Ronald said.

So without further delay, he filled them in on what had happened to Kendra, at least what Randal said had happened, before asking them about their interview with Ronald. To save Ronald from having to repeat his harrowing story, Todd took out his voice recorder and replayed the previous interview, while Stephen fished out a pen and a small legal pad from his inside jacket pocket and took notes as he listened.

Afterwards he put away his pen and legal pad and said, “Jesus, Ronnie, I never thought you’d get screwed over like that!”

“It can’t be helped at this late date,” Ronald said, “but I do have a question.”

“Shoot,” Stephen said.

“This Aaron Rancaster or whoever he is,” Ronald said, “do you really think it’s him? Do you really think Dracula still exists on this side of the Borderlands?”

Stephen nodded and said, “Fact is stranger than fiction, man, and your account solidified my body double hypothesis on my part of the investigation. From the onset, Randal and I noticed a coicidence between the murder of Ezra Rancaster and the disappearance of his grandson, Aaron Rancaster, in the summer of 1897. While my brother looked into Ezra Rancaster’s death, I was looking into the reports of Aaron Rancaster’s disappearance when he was five years old, and we discussed the facts amongst ourselves as we found out more. My ancestor, Leon Larking, filed the original inquest into Aaron’s disappearance, claiming that his body had been found mutilated and buried near the crossing of Woodley Avenue and the train tracks of the Helgon Station at the depot, but Aaron’s father, Tobias Rancaster, challenged it and publicly denounced his claim and called it a forgery. There’s a lot of conflicting details between the two in the papers at the time, but from what I’ve read, Aaron’s disappearance and Tobias’s miraculous rescue of his son has all the earmarks of mistaken identity or even a possible body substitution.”

“My God!” Ronald said. “You mean the real Aaron Rancaster—”

“—was replaced, yes,” Stephen said.

“Jesus,” Ronald said, “who the fuck was I friends with, then?”

“We don’t know yet,” he said. “All we have is circumstantial evidence so far. We need another link!”

“That’s me,” Ronald said. “I saw him with my own eyes!”

“I mean another link besides you, so we can verify through cross referencing,” Stephen said. “That’s why my brother and I were at the Nayland Hospital, and it just so happens that our one key link in this investigation, Mara Cairns, is missing! Do you see the position we’re in?”

“Christ, sorry I asked,” Ronald said.

“Told you it’s one of those briefings,” Lt. Shaefer said.

“What did Randal find on his end?” Todd Curvan said.

Stephen said, “Randal looked into it and found the original inquest into Ezra Rancaster’s death, this time filed by his son Tobias Rancaster after his rescue of Aaron Rancaster. The inquest said Ezra died while taking care of Aaron Rancaster in his house while his son was on duty that night. He died under mysterious circumstances, in which his blood had been leached out of his body while he was still alive.”

“Jesus H. Christ!” Ronald said.

“I know,” he said, looking Ronald in the eyes, “but it gets worse. I helped my brother look into Tobias Rancaster’s investigation of Ezra’s death, and we found out he invited the likes of Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Pat Garrett, and even your father Scott Hamilton of the Pinkerton Agency to help, till your father found out something that spooked Tobias and caused him to call off the investigation. What your father found out led him down a rabbit hole we’re about to face, and that’s why we’ve pulled you into this, Ronnie, because you knew Scott Hamilton and Tobias Rancaster and even Aaron Rancaster. Hell, you probably know more about them than any of us here.”

“So much death, so much pain,” Ronald said, lacing his hands together on the table. “I only knew my father for the first twenty years of my life, and he never once told me anything about any of his cases, let alone that one. My father’s death was how I became friends with Aaron Rancaster in the first place. After we buried my father, Tobias adopted me as his stepson and introduced me to Aaron Rancaster as his big brother. Since then, Rancaster and I became brothers and comrades of the deadliest dye, closer than blood brothers, though Aaron was always a little brother to me. God, how things have changed since then.”

“Is that why you volunteered?” Stephen said.

Ronald nodded, saying, “I have to know the truth, whether or not my childhood friend and brother in arms was really a friend or a demon in disguise. God, blast that fucker to Hell!” And he slammed his fist on the tea table, jolting the platter and the tea set, then paused for a spell to calm down. “I have to know for sure if Rancaster really is who he says he is.”

“What’ll you do when you find out?” Stephen said.

“God, I don’t know,” he said. “I guess I’ll just have to find out when I see him again. That’s why I can’t pass on. That’s why I’m stuck in this godforsaken limbo!”

“Ronnie, I promise you’ll pass on,” Stephen said, reaching out across the table and grasping his hands.

“That’s what Leon Larking said to me,” Ronald said. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

6

As messieurs Shaefer and Dolan led the way on their horses, looking for bandits and dragons and nightmares with Akami and Auna, Monsieur Curvan lagged behind with Shiromi and Nico, waxing nigh poetic on his more colorful adventures with his two comrades, along with another personage named Monsieur Tellerman, who made a fourth member in their adventures. One of these adventures, he said, was at the Daisy Chateau wherein he and his comrades infiltrated the chateau by wearing drab and hiding their swords underneath the farthingales of their dresses.

“You’re kidding,” Nico said.

“Oh, I’m not kidding, mademoiselle,” Monsieur Curvan said. “We took our time, too, and when we—”

“That's quite enough, monsieur,” Monsieur Dolan said, lagging back with his horse and looking at Nico in embarrassment. “We don't crossdress unless we have to, and thank God that's the only time we've ever had to do it.”

“Do you like crossdressing?” Shiromi said.

“Nope,” said Monsieur Dolan.

Monsieur Curvan leaned over in his saddle towards Nico and Shiromi and said, “Not in particular, but you should’ve seen Monsieur Dolan in that dress. If he was a little shorter and of a more slender build, he’d cut a fine—”

“That’s enough, I say!” Monsieur Dolan said, leading his horse in front of his gossip-tongued comrade.

“All right, all right,” Monsieur Curvan said, bringing his horse to a momentary stop. “Don’t soil your codpiece!”

When both men rejoined Shiromi and Nico, trotting beside the girls, Nico said, “Why isn’t Monsieur Tellerman here with us?”

At her question, both men looked away from their traveling companions with grim faces, till Monsieur Dolan said, “He died.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Nico said.

“It’s all right,” he said. “The old boy knew what he was getting into when he joined the Musketeers.”

Nico and Shiromi traded looks.

Shiromi said, “How’d he die?”

“Shiromi!” Nico said.

“I was just curious,” Shiromi said, then to her two riding companions: “Don’t mind her. She’s a bit of prude.”

“No, I’m not,” she said. “You’re just being really—”

“Insensitive?” Monsieur Dolan said.

“See?” Nico said, shoving Shiromi forward and feeling her butt pressing into her lap. “You should apologize!”

“There’s no need, mademoiselle,” Monsieur Curvan said. “In our line of work, we need a thick skin, and Monsieur Tellerman’s just wasn’t thick enough in the end.”

“You don’t have to tell,” Nico said, “if you don’t want to.”

“I’ll tell, I’ll tell,” Monsieur Dolan said. “If you cut down the horror of it with words, it won’t seem quite as horrible.” He looked to Monsieur Curvan, who nodded his head, then said, “It started four years ago when we were celebrating Christmas after one of our latest adventures at Monsieur Tellerman’s chateau, during which an imposing horseman called the White Knight came into the dining hall and insisted we play a friendly Christmas game with him. When we asked what he had in mind, he challenged one of us to behead him on the condition that he return the blow on the one who struck first. We thought he was mad, but he insulted our honor in the worst way, so Monsieur Tellerman took up the challenge . . . and did the deed.”

Again, Nico and Shiromi traded looks.

“What happened?” Nico said.

“Well,” Monsieur Dolan continued, “we all watched in amazement when the headless horseman got back up from the floor and picked up his head by the hairs of his scalp, and the blasted head spoke these words: ‘Wait one year to this very day and hour, and meet me at the White Chapel where I will return the favor.’”

“Then what happened?” Shiromi said.

“When the time came,” Dolan said, his eyes cast down in grief, “Monsieur Tellerman secreted himself to meet his fate at the White Chapel against our pleas, so we followed him, but we couldn’t enter the threshold of the chapel’s square where the blow was returned. So there we stood, banging against the invisible barrier, pleading with him one more time to cancel this madness, but Monsieur Tellerman met his end at the blade of that foul monster as we watched in horror. Thank God, his daughter wasn’t there to see it.”

“What’s become of his daughter?” Nico said.

“I adopted her as my own,” Monsieur Dolan said.

“What’s her name?” Nico said.

“Kendra,” he said.

At that name, Nico thought of Auna Wenger asking her if she knew a girl named Kendra Tellerman, to which she had answered no, but felt that she should’ve known about her. Through this fog of ignorance, another name came up, and Nico said, “Do you know someone named Celia Hearn?”

“Ah, the good witch of the City of Oz!” Monsieur Dolan said. “Have you had the honor of meeting her highness, by any chance?”

“I have,” Nico said. “She’s a good friend of mine.”

The two musketeers stared at her as though she were like royalty: so wondrous and honored was the name of Celia Hearn that they crossed themselves over the crosses of their tabards and whispered a blessing upon Nico’s name and their own names.

“You are truly blessed, Mademoiselle,” Monsieur Curvan said. “Not many get to see her in person.”

“Dare I ask what’s the occasion?” Monsieur Dolan said.

Nico colored a bit, thinking of Celia trolling her in Katherine’s dream mansion before kissing her in the living room, so Shiromi lied for her, saying, “She knighted her.”

Nico said, “Shiromi, that’s not—” But when she saw the amazement on the faces of the two musketeers riding beside her, she blushed and said, “I don’t talk about it too much.”

The two musketeers traded quizzical looks, and Monsieur Dolan said, “Humility. That’s a rare quality in an especially rare knight. To have such a guest in our presence is quite an honor,” and he and Monsieur Curvan tipped the brims of their hats to her.

“And should you ever require our services, chevalier,” Monsieur Curvan added, “we’ll be your men to command and follow you wherever you go.”

With that, both musketeers kicked the sides of their horses and caught up to Monsieur Shaefer and Akami and Auna, gushing at the lie that Shiromi had told them about Nico. At this, Monsieur Shaefer and Akami and Auna looked over their shoulders back at Nico, and Monsieur Shaefer tipped the brim of his hat to her.

“What the hell?” Nico said, shoving Shiromi forward and receiving a lap full of her butt cheeks. “Why’d you have to lie like that?”

“If you keep shoving me like that, I’ll raise my dress,” Shiromi teased, looking back and smiling at her. “I’ll do it if you want.”

“No!” Nico yelled.

Up ahead of them, the musketeers and Akami and Auna glanced back over their shoulders at them. And as they were all looking, Shiromi let go of the reins and tugged the hems of her Sunday dress up past her butt over the saddle, revealing—

“Oh my God, really?” Nico said, sliding herself up the cantle of the saddle and away from her bare bottom, blushing like she had never blushed before. “Really?”

“Only for you, my dear.”

“God, you’re disgusting!” And Nico shoved Shiromi forward, launching Shiromi’s bare bottom into her lap. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“Because it’s fun,” she said, lowering the hem of her dress, so Nico wouldn’t have to see it. “Auna and I used to moon people when we were little.”

“That’s messed up,” Nico said. “You’re as much of a troll as Celia Hearn. You two should get together some time.”

“In that case,” Shiromi said, smiling another of her devious smiles, “we should make it a threesome,” and she began twerking her butt over the saddle against Nico’s lap.

“You’re hopeless,” Nico said, then waved her hands in the air and yelled up ahead of her, saying, “Akami, can we switch saddles? Shiromi is a major pain!”

“In your ass?” Shiromi said. “Or in her ass?”

“Ugh, shut it!” Nico said, shoving Shiromi forward again, and Nico’s lap received another serving of her ass. All the while, Akami and Auna looked back, but they ignored Nico’s call and continued along with the group of musketeers, who were talking about another adventure with the two of them as their audience. At this point, Nico was a blushing plush ball of humiliation, so she changed tactics from actions to words and said, “If you keep doing this, I’ll tell Akami.”

“I don’t mind,” Shiromi said. “In fact, you should tell her. She’s too much of a prude in my book.”

“Then I’ll tell Auna,” Nico said.

“That’s all right,” she said. “She’s used to it.”

Nico paused for a spell, giving it a good long think, when an idea popped in her head. “Shiromi, who do you love more? Me, or Auna?”

Shiromi paused, then looked behind her and said, “Why are you asking me this?”

“If you keep pestering me with your derrière,” Nico said, “I’ll ask Auna this question, and we’ll both make you answer it.” She then smiled and peered into Shiromi’s eyes and said, “Oh, you better believe I’ll do it.”

The girl remained silent for a time, then said, “Did you learn that from this Celia Hearn?”

“Yep,” Nico said, smiling at her like it was the most natural thing in the world. “And it’ll be fun seeing you squirm.”

But just when Nico thought she had the upper hand, Shiromi said, “Then we’ll make it a foursome—you, me, Celia, and Auna.”

Nico groaned and shoved her again and received another serving of Shiromi’s ass against her lap.

7

While everyone was wondering what was going on with Colbie one floor below, Leslie shut the door behind her said, “Kathy, you’re a good girl, and God bless you for being there for Colbie, but we really need to talk.”

Katherine kept her gaze on the carpet and said nothing.

So Leslie just stood there in the middle of her bedroom without any idea how to go on. She felt ambiguous towards Katherine, wanting to kiss her for comforting Colbie when she needed it, but wanting to slap her for using her daughter like that to deal with her own problems. In the end, she chose to interrogate and said, “What do you have to say for yourself?”

Katherine gulped and said, “Sorry won't cut it, will it?”

“You’re right. It won’t.”

Katherine met Leslie’s eyes, then looked away and said, “I really fucked things up, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, you did,” Leslie said, then thought of her next few words, for she didn’t feel like antagonizing Katherine more than she deserved, but she felt Katherine still deserved something more. “Was it that bad keeping your mom’s secret? Was it really that bad that you had to . . . drag my daughter into your problems?”

“God, Leslie, what do you expect me to do?” Katherine said. “Pretend it didn’t happen?”

“No,” Leslie said. “I expect you to be more responsible for yourself. For Colbie’s sake, I won’t scream at you, but damn it! Don’t you ever mess around with my kid again, got it?”

“I know, and I’m sorry,” Katherine said, “and I know ‘sorry’ won’t cut it, but give me a break!”

“Why should I?”

“Because . . . Really?” Katherine said, getting up and looking Leslie in the eyes. “Really? You’re gonna be that way?”

“God, you’re clueless!” she said, then placed her hand on Katherine’s shoulder, but she shook it off. “Kathy, if you need help, all you have to do is let me know. Just don’t go behind my back with Colbie. She’s still a minor, you know.”

“I know, I know!” Katherine said. “God, I’m so damn sorry, and I know I’m pushing it, but . . . but I don’t know who else to turn to.” And she sat back down on her bed and buried her face in her hands.

“What about your sisters?” Leslie said.

Katherine looked up at her as though she were kidding. “No.”

“Why not?” Leslie said.

“Because . . .” And Katherine let her words drift off the tip of her tongue without saying another word.

“Because of what?” When Katherine stayed silent, Leslie sat beside her on the bed and said, “Kathy, I know you’re trying to protect them, and I know the truth will hurt, but they deserve to know what happened to their family.”

“Even when it hurts?” Katherine said.

“Especially when it hurts,” Leslie said, and she cupped Katherine’s face in her hands. “Kathy, listen to me. Your sisters need your guidance, and you need their strength—now more than ever. Have faith in them. They can take it, and if it’s too much for them to handle, then be there for them, and they’ll be there for you, too. Trust me on this. Okay?”

Katherine nodded her head in Leslie’s hands, then leaned forwards to put her lips to Leslie’s, but Leslie put her finger there and shook her head.

“I’m not your lover, Kathy,” Leslie said, even as a lock of Katherine’s hair reached over Katherine’s shoulder and curled around Leslie’s hand. “You’re like a daughter to me. You, your sisters, Colbie, even Kendra—you’re all like family to me. Isn’t that enough?”

At her question, Katherine cried, saying that she was sorry, while her hair kept a firm grip over Leslie’s hand, so Leslie hugged her and said that it was okay. She said she understood why Katherine kept doing it that way, because Katherine’s own mom had done the same thing with Leslie and Ramona when they were young, when it had happened to them all those years ago. Leslie knew her motherly love was not enough to soothe away the pain that Katherine held inside, but she shrunk from taking that last step with her into an extramarital affair.

So here they stayed for a time with more locks of Katherine’s hair reaching towards Leslie and wrapping around her waist, till Leslie said, “They’re waiting for us.”

“I know.”

“Are you ready?”

“I don’t know,” Katherine said.

“Kathy, please,” Leslie said, and grabbed a chunk of Katherine’s hair and massaged it in her fingers. “I need you to be strong for your sisters. They need you more than you know.”

Katherine paused for a time, then said, “I’ll try,” and picked herself up and followed Leslie out through the door and down the stairs and across the entrance hall and into the family room.

8

While the musketeers kept up their storytelling with an attentive Akami and Auna, and while Shiromi kept hassling Nico with her derrière, the yellow-brick road up ahead branched off into forty different directions and began to spiral around each other into the horizon.

Monsieur Shaefer pointed it out to his companions (“What’s that over there?”) and tried to hold his gaze along the bewildering set of roads converging into that distant spiral of lawns and roads at some indistinct point of reference.

“What is it?” Akami and Auna said at once.

“I have no idea,” Monsieur Shaefer said.

Monsieur Curvan fished out a spyglass and held it to his eye, saying, “There’s something in the middle of that spiral.”

“What do you see?” Akami said.

“I think it’s a house of some kind,” he said and gave it to her, so she could see for herself. “I can’t make heads or tails of it. It's just too . . . inexplicable. I don’t know any other way of describing it.”

Akami held the spyglass up to her eye and said, “I spy with my little eye . . . a ranch house with . . .” She paused, her mouth gaping at the sight of—

“What do you see?” Auna said.

“Is it dangerous?” said Monsieur Shaefer.

“Is it unusual?” said Monsieur Dolan.

“Is it interesting?” said Monsieur Curvan.

“I don’t think so,” Akami said. “All I see is a small house there, but it’s . . . lying over the legs and feet of some unfortunate woman. I’d hate to be her.”

“Give me that,” Auna said. When Akami gave it, Auna held it up to her eye and saw a little prairie house over those very legs and feet just as Akami had described, and she found herself thinking of the technicolor adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, but the shoes she saw through the spyglass were silver and not red.

“Who’s house is it?” Akami said.

“I’m not sure,” Auna said, “but I think it’s Dorothy’s house.”

“Who’s Dorothy?” Monsieur Curvan said.

“Is she a friend of yours?” Monsieur Dolan added.

“Not really,” Auna said, who happened to look behind her shoulder to see if Shiromi and Nico had caught up with them. “Wait,” she said, craning her neck and looking for any sign of her two riding companions, “where are Shiromi and Nico?”

The three musketeers and Akami wheeled their horses around and saw no sign of their companions anywhere along the road behind them. When they wheeled back around, though, they all saw the different scenery around them, for the labyrinth of forty roads they’d seen ahead of them had translated their positions along one of these reads. As far as the eye could see, long stretches of yellow-brick road snaked through the emerald green lawns in wayward patterns going in forty different directions, yet all of which led towards the spiral ahead of them and the anomalous ranch house in the middle of it.

When Auna looked behind her over her shoulder again, she spotted a cloud of dust forming on the Eastern horizon, so she raised the spyglass to her eye and saw a legion of the Cardinal’s men cloaked with red tabards and mounted on horses galloping their way en masse along many of the winding roads.

So Monsieur Dolan took out his spyglass and put it to his eye.

“What do you see?” Akami said.

“They’re red musketeers,” Auna said.

“They’re the Cardinal’s men!” Monsieur Dolan said.

“Give me that,” Akami said, and when he handed it to her, she looked through the spyglass and saw that they were not men. “They’re . . . girls? Wait . . . They’re your clones, Auna! Alice has tracked us down!”

So messieurs Shaefer and Curvan wheeled their horses around, and Monsieur Shaefer yelled to Monsieur Dolan, “You get these two out of here! We’ll head them off!”

With that, messieurs Shaefer and Curvan brandished their flintlock pistols and galloped off the road and across the lawns, crossing more roads and lawns to lead the legion of calvary girls on a decoy chase. Soon the sound of gunfire thundered across the fields, and the skirmish had begun.

All the while, Akami galloped her steed hard along the yellow-brick road, following Monsieur Dolan through the twists and turns, while Auna peered back over her shoulder and saw a small party of red tabard-clad Auna Wenger clones breaking off from the main legion following the decoy and charging straight for them in two ranks of half a dozen. Soon they began firing off shots from their flintlock pistols, scraping off chunks of lawn and soil and yellow brick just feet from them.

They followed the long curve of the outermost spiral leading towards Dorothy’s prairie house, then veered off the road and headed straight for the building, crossing several roads and dwindling stretches of lawn. When they reached the small prairie house, they stopped behind the house that sat on a wide circumference of yellow bricks, on which the legs and feet of that unfortunate woman stuck out from one of the side walls.

All three dismounted their steeds. Monsieur Dolan hauled the pouches of guns and ammunition and gunpowder from the saddle, and Auna and Akami sprinted towards the door and tried the knob, then yanked on it, trying to get it to open.

Faraway shots rang out over the field, biting marks on the yellow brick and splintering off chunks of wood from the house. Monsieur Dolan’s horse neighed and galloped off into the fields.

“Stand back!” Monsieur Dolan said, and when they did, he pulled out a blunderbuss and fired. Thunder blasted the air, and with gun smoke clouding around them, he kicked the door open and led the way in, saying, “Dear, God, it’s a death trap!”

Then more shots fired from outside, closer this time, splintering wood off the walls, off the table and chairs, and even off of a cupboard, shattering the window panes and dishes, and pinging against the stove.

Auna and Akami sprinted towards the beds and helped each other tip the mattresses onto their sides and hauled them up against the shattered windows, while Monsieur Dolan pushed the stove up against the entrance door. All the while, more shots tore through the mattresses, scattering tufts of stuffing and bed feathers on the floor, pinging against the stove, tearing more splinters from the walls, and ricocheting off the floor boards.

“Looks like it’s our last stand,” Monsieur Dolan said, holding a blunderbuss in each hand. “God, help us!”

Just then, Auna spotted the trap door in the center of the room, and she crouched down and struggled with the weight on her fingertips, saying, “Arrrrgh, it’s too heavy!”

So the musketeer and Akami crouched and dug their fingers in and heaved the trap door up with their combined strength, lifting it and then pushing it back, till it landed with a bang against the floorboards, kicking up dust.

A set of stairs led down into the darkness.

More shots rang out from outside, a growing volley of it, and more pings and splinters and tufts of stuffing fluttered through the room and scattered across the floorboards.

“Get away from here!” the musketeer said. “As far as you can!”

“What about you?” Auna said.

“I’ll keep them at bay for as long as I can!” he said. “Now go!”

Yet the girls hesitated, and Auna wanted to say something to the man before they left, before the inevitable happened, but the man ordered, “Go! Get out of here! GET OUT OF HERE!”

They had no choice. Akami pulled Auna with her down the steps, down into the silence of a limbo between dreamscapes and away from the gunshots and the chaos.

Yet in Auna’s mind, the chaos and the gunshots continued, raising up Monsieur Dolan’s one-man suicide struggle against mounting odds like a movie in her head. In it, she imagined Monsieur Dolan struggling to lift the trap door off the ground on his own, so he wedged his scabbard up against it and leveraged it up past his waist, whereon he got a better hold and pushed it up to vertical and let it fall with another bang over the staircase. Afterwards, Auna saw him cowering for a time behind the stove with his two blunderbusses in his hands, catching his breath, yet as the gunshots continued, unabated, he set his jaw and steeled his eyes against the inevitable, no longer afraid of the outcome.

He stood up in the midst of Hell itself, slid back the stove from the door, dropped his blunderbusses to the floor, where they thudded and went off, filling the whole room with gun smoke. He stood up straight and unsheathed his rapier and lingered by the stove in thought, thinking of his fallen comrade, Monsieur Tellerman. He was thinking of the Green Knight beheading his long-time friend and partner in the chapel’s square, thinking of his head rolling on the paving stones and spurting out blood. Then his thoughts shifted onto Kendra Tellerman, his stepdaughter, shifting locations from this weird wonderland to the waking world in someone’s family room, where she slept on the couch with a blood-colored shroud over her body.

It was this person who gave Monsieur Dolan his courage, this very image of tranquility that set his nerves against the chaos going on around him, this daughter of fate that pushed him to open the door and run out into the volley and gun smoke of the firing squad, waving his sword and saying, “God, save the—”

His words were cut short as he fell, dead, onto the yellow brick pavement and stained it with his blood. And in his fall, he fell back into the arms of Mother Earth, back to the Mother of all the living and the dead who has cried over her children since the beginning of time.

All this, Auna conjured up in her mind as she descended the last steps before heading onto a rooftop of some unknown cityscape. Here, in a morning dreamscape of some nameless Chinatown, Auna stopped and fell to her knees, crying over the dead.

“Auna?” Akami said, turning back. “Auna, what’s wrong?”

“He’s dead,” Auna said through her sobs.

And all at once, Akami fell silent and kneeled with Auna and embraced her, holding her close to her body, and letting her cry over the first man to have sacrificed his life for the Queen of Hearts.

“Auna,” she said, “it won’t matter what happens to me. I’ll always be with you, no matter what!”

As she held Auna close, she peered out over her shoulder and saw Alice Liddell standing on top of the balustrade of the roof, and she noticed the knife in her hand.

“It only happens when you’re not looking,” Alice said.

9

The moment Leslie and Katherine entered the family room, they were barraged with questions from all the occupants, including their newest arrival, Randal Larking, till they got a look at Katherine’s somber expression and became quiet. Leslie led Katherine towards the divans and asked Colbie to go sit with Celia and Madison on the sofa, while she and Katherine sat on the divans.

When Colbie and Katherine and Leslie were settled, Leslie looked at Randal Larking in his black trench coat, leaning against the other armrest of the sofa on which Kendra slept, his face and gray hair slicked over with sweat, and his hands clenched firm as if he were holding a blunderbuss in both hands.

“Are you okay?” Leslie said.

“I’m fine, thank you,” he said, and his hands unclenched and relaxed. “Really, I’m fine.”

“Where’s your brother?”

“He’s heading back to the Phantom Office,” Randal said, “but Roy asked me to stay here and hear you out.”

“Does he know you’re here?”

“Yeah,” he said. “He’s the one who dropped me off before heading back there. And I’ll make sure to tell him what everyone’s said here when I call him back.”

“Including what I have to say?” Leslie said.

He nodded, saying, “That, too.” Then he looked at the careworn faces of all the occupants in the room, as if gaging everyone’s stress levels from their expressions, and waited for Leslie to begin.

So Leslie checked her watched (7:16 a.m.) and wondered how so much drama could have happened in such a short amount of time, then took a took a deep breath to steady her nerves and said, “Celia, Maddy, this is gonna be as difficult for you as it is for Kathy, so if you need a hug, or you need someone to cry over, my Colbie’s with you.”

At her words, Colbie took the hands of Celia and Madison on her own and nodded at her mother to begin.

Instead of starting right off the bat, Leslie looked at Katherine beside her and at Celia and Madison in front of her, then at Kendra on the other sofa to her left and said, “We were all friends at your age—me, your mother, and Ramona. We’ve been friends since elementary school, and we stuck together through boyfriends and breakups and even in marriage to our husbands. We were friends to the end, till death took one of us to the grave,” and she looked to Kendra asleep on the sofa, “and drove another far away,” and she looked at Celia and Madison and then at Katherine, who seemed to be holding up.

“When it all started,” Leslie began, “we hadn’t a clue what was going on when Amelia Hearn (your grandmother) took off from her work on sick leave to rest. She had been taking off from work a lot in the last year of her life, and we were all worried about her, especially for your mother’s sake. In one of our later visits to this house, Ramona and I found out from Lima that Amelia had been diagnosed with hemolytic anemia and required a blood transfusion. The day after she was released from the hospital, we found Amelia was asleep in her bed, and she stayed asleep all day and came to that night. So for the next several weeks during the summer, Ramona and I looked after Amelia in the house, while Lima worked at her part-time job and took care of the medical bills. Ramona and I took turns guiding Amelia to and from the bathroom, we prepared late breakfast and lunch for her, we took care of the ironing and gardening, and we kept her company till Lima arrived after work.

“But during one of these daycare visits, we noticed crosses hung over the headboard of Amelia’s bed, we found garlic cloves in the corners of her room and by all the door jambs in the house. At first, we talked to Amelia about it during lunch, but she wouldn’t say much about them. She said they were just ‘precautions’ and left it at that. When we asked Lima about them after her work, though, she told us to be quiet, till after she tucked Amelia in bed later that afternoon. Afterwards, Lima took us into her bedroom and said . . .”

つづく