Great Spirit whom the sea of boundless thought

Nurtures within its unimagined caves,

In which thou sittest sole, as in my mind,

Giving a voice to its mysterious waves—

—Percy Bysshe Shelley,

Fragment: “‘Great Spirit’”

1

It was now 8:29 a.m.

After the tension between Shiromi and Blaze died down, Cooley went over to the blue musketeer and shook him, but when he stayed asleep, she said, “Is this guy unconscious or something?”

“It looks like it,” Akami said.

“What happened to him?” she said.

“He helped me and Auna get out of a tight spot once,” Akami said, “but other than that, I’m not sure what happened to him.”

“This ‘Auna’ you mentioned,” Blaze said. “Is she still alive?”

“Yes,” Akami said. “Why do you ask?”

“I’m asking,” she said, “because after Maddy and I laid you two out, we all saw her—”

Cooley punched her shoulder—

“What?” Blaze said.

—and said, “Please, don’t start anything, okay?”

“I wasn’t trying to, geez!” Blaze said, then started collecting the incense bowls from the floor and placing them atop the table.

“Don’t mind her,” Cooley said and went over to the table and pulled a pair of chairs over to the bedside, so she and Blaze could sit close to their visitors. “Come here.”

So Blaze came over and sat beside her and said, “I promise not to start anything, so there!”

With that, Cooley and Blaze began asking questions, and Nico and the Red and White Queens spent the next few minutes explaining how they wound up together and what had transpired since their arrival here. It amounted to several back-and-forth questions and answers on various topics amongst Nico and the Queens. First, it was Nico’s turn, in which she talked about having tea with the Red and White Queens and then waking up Auna for them and later meeting Monsieur Dolan and his comrades before escaping Alice’s red musketeers together with Shiromi on horseback. Then it was Akami’s turn, in which she talked about Monsieur Dolan helping them escape Alice’s red musketeers and taking Auna to the Dragon Volant in order to escape more of those musketeers and later encountering Rancaster and Alice and Amelia Hearn. On the topic of Amelia Hearn, Cooley asked more questions and got more answers about Amelia’s role in getting Auna to Chess Cathedral. And then it was Shiromi’s turn, in which she talked about pestering Nico with her ass during their horseback ride together along the yellow-brick road like a loving couple, for which Nico punched her shoulder and told her to quit being such a cringe-freak.

With all of that settled, Cooley looked over at Monsieur Dolan, still sleeping like a log beside the bed, and pointed at him and said, “Is there a reason why he’s here?”

Akami paused for a spell, then said, “I’m not sure, but maybe Auna has something to do with it,” and she got up from the bed and crouched before the blue musketeer and raised the tabard above his trousers—

Till Shiromi whistled and said, “I didn’t know you were that kind of girl.”

Akami threw her white counterpart a glare, saying, “It’s not what you’re thinking,” and she reached into the man’s pocket and pulled out a key ring with a key attached and showed it to Cooley. “I gave this to Auna at Chess Cathedral before I was forced to leave its premises. I even heard Rancaster tell her to hold onto this thing before she and I even got there, so I know it’s important, but the fact that it’s with Monsieur Dolan tells me something was up.”

“Like what?” Cooley said.

“I don’t know for sure,” Akami said, “but I’m thinking Auna’s the reason we’re all here.”

“Okay,” Cooley said. “That doesn’t really tell me anything, but okay,” and she paused for a spell, rolling the possibilities through her head, and added, “Did you find that key on him?”

“I did,” she said.

“Do you know what that key is for?” Cooley said.

“It’s the key to Room no. 99 at the Dragon Volant,” she said.

“And why there?” Cooley said.

“It’s the entrance to Chess Cathedral,” she said, “where Auna was headed for the coronation.”

Cooley reached for the key, saying, “Give it here.” And when she did, Cooley stood up and summoned a body-length mirror before her and pressed it against the surface as it shimmered to life. “Okay, based on everything you three have said so far, you’re all here because of Auna, so I’m gonna test something out. While I’m holding this key onto the mirror, you three touch the surface, and we’ll find out what’s going on.”

“I’ll go first,” Akami said, getting up from the bed and reaching out and touching the mirror.

The mirror shifted, blurring out the image of Akami and Cooley and Blaze from its reflection, but turned back to normal.

“Nothing,” Cooley said. “Next.”

So Shiromi got up from the bed, as Akami sat back down, and approached the mirror and touched it, saying, “There.”

And the mirror shifted, blurring out the image of Shiromi and Cooley and Blaze from its reflection, but turned back to normal.

“Nothing,” Cooley said. “You’re next, Nico.”

So Nico got up from the bed, as Shiromi sat back down, and approached the mirror and touched it.

And all at once, the mirror shifted, blurring out the image of Nico and Cooley and Blaze from its reflection as a myriad of shapes and colors came in and out of focus. And through those shifting shapes and colors, as these images solidified into the faces of her sister Mara and then Kendra on the reflection, their memories of what Alice had done to them now flooded Nico’s mind, till she pulled away in horror, dissipating their images from the mirror. She covered her mouth, feeling bile rising up in her throat, while she squirmed at the residual sensations of caressing and groping and rubbing and pinching and kissing and nibbling and sucking over her body under Alice’s sexual tyranny.

Cooley and Blaze and the Red and White Queens all came to Nico’s aid, guiding her back onto the bed, where Nico plopped herself down and buried her face in her hands.

“What’s wrong?” Blaze said.

“What did you see?” Cooley added.

While Akami and Shiromi said, “What happened?”

Yet Nico couldn’t answer them. Her mind was still awash with Mara making love to Colbie and Kendra making love to Kendra’s stepfather and Kendra’s boyfriend, while Kendra’s mother looked on in horror from the threshold of the door. Thus, under the mindfuckery of Alice’s tyranny, Nico kept crying.

For now, all they did was comfort her, telling her that it was going to be okay, even when it was plain to everyone present that it won’t be for the next few minutes.

2

It was now 8:30 a.m.

At Lucy’s request, Amelia stood up from the table and looked at her watch again, saying, “Our clothes should be dry by now, so follow me,” and she stalked her way to the stairs behind the kitchenette, then added, “Watch your step now,” and she proceeded up to her bedroom loft, followed by her three guests. Amelia reached the drying rack next to the railing and handed Ramona and Bridget and Lucy their clothes, then changed into her own.

After they all got dressed, Amelia descended the stairs again with her three guests coming down with her back to the dining area, where she stretched out her hand and summoned her mirror before the dining table.

Then she said, “Lucy, I’ll have to change how we approach this, since you’re the one requesting this. Now put your hand against my mirror.”

So Lucy placed her palm flat against the mirror sheen and said, “Like this?”

“Perfect,” she said and turned to Ramona and Bridget. “Both of you, I need you to place your hands over Lucy’s in the mirror.”

And Ramona and Bridget did as Amelia bade them, stacking their hands atop each other as the reflection began to glow with their combined energies.

Then Amelia said, “Keep your hands steady there,” and fished a sewing needle out of her jacket pocket and pricked her finger, till a bright bead of ectoplasm leaked out. After that, she touched the surface of the mirror with it and said, “Blood on blood, blood to blood, the Life is in the blood. Help me find the blood of the dead, help me find Nico Cairns.”

And the mirror reflection rippled from her finger out into the abyss of Nico’s psyche towards an unseen horizon and glowed from depths unfathomable, manifesting images of Nico kissing various girls from Mara to Kendra and Celia and even Auna in a flood of memories, till it solidified into two vivid ones playing out like an ecchi clip. And through the reflection was Nico under the influence of two dual memories, both horrendous, of Mara and Kendra under the sexual tyranny of Alice Liddell as she forced them to see and feel things that made their stomachs squirm.

“Oh my God,” Lucy said, tears began trailing her cheeks, “what’s happening to her? Why is—”

“Don’t lose heart, dear. We’re here with you,” Amelia said and added another spell: “My mind is my mirror. Let them see what I have seen, let them find what I have found, let them be where I have been. Reflect!”

Then the mirror flashed, filling the dining area with light for just a moment, and took all four mothers out of Amelia’s dream realm into the dream realm of Nico’s turbulent mind, leaving Amelia Hearn’s astral memories of her beloved shop behind like an afterimage fading to black.

3

It was now 8:31 a.m.

Instead of waiting for Nico, Cooley did something else and placed her palm flat over the surface of her mirror, then grabbed Blaze’s hand with her free hand and said, “We’ll do it another way. You two,” and she pointed out Shiromi and Akami sitting on either side of Nico on the bedside, “hold hands with Nico.” And when the Red and White Queens linked their hands with Nico’s, who was still crying, Cooley added, “One of you link hands with Blaze.”

So Akami grabbed Blaze’s hand and said, “What’s next?”

With everyone in the vault holding hands from Shiromi on one end to Cooley on the other end, Cooley looked into Nico’s mind through the reflection on her mirror and summoned two giant copies of it, one below her feet and another above her head. Cooley then concentrated on what was happening in the mirror before her, fixing Nico’s memory into the mirror of her own mind, and said, “Release!”

And the mirror flashed before dispersing into shimmering particles that recreated what was happening in Nico’s mind like moving holograms in the reflections. In this way, Cooley and Blaze and Akami and Shiromi bore witness to what Nico was experiencing in her own mind. And what they saw turned their stomachs on seeing Alice’s sexual tyranny over Mara and Kendra over Katherine’s bed in her naughty room inside her dream mansion, holding both of them down by their wrists and smothering them with kisses and planting hickeys on their throats and collar bones and the parting between their breasts and further down . . .

Then the dreamscape shifted into Alice looking into their eyes, in which they saw Mara making love to Colbie Amame while Rancaster was looking on in silence and Kendra making love to Roy Dolan and Randal Larking while her parents were looking on in horror . . .

But the dreamscape shifted yet again to an older woman walking through the door and dissipating the mental holograms, while Nico was transfixed at this woman from the bed . . .

“Wait, what’s going on here?” Blaze said.

“Do you know who she is?” Akami added.

“Is she single?” Shiromi added.

Blaze and Akami and Cooley deadpanned at Shiromi’s question.

So Cooley ignored the third question and said, “I’ve never seen her before, but I hope she’s on our side.”

“Why’s that?” Akami said.

“She’s powerful,” Cooley said, then added as she glared at Shiromi, “In other words, she’s not someone you’d wanna mess with, unless you have a death wish.”

“Okay, okay, I get it!” Shiromi said.

But Akami looked over at her sick-thoughted white counterpart and added, “Whatever is going through your mind right now, please keep it to yourself.”

“You’re no fun!”

4

It was now 8:33 a.m.

Meanwhile, trapped in the glamor of Alice’s sexual tyranny over Kendra, Nico found herself transfixed at Kendra’s mother on the threshold of the door when she entered the room and dissipated the horrors happening to Mara and Kendra from her mind. That’s when Kendra’s mother came over to a sniffling and crying Nico and hugged her close to her bosom, saying that it was okay. It was always okay, even when it wasn't, because that's what mothers did to protect their children from hurting more than they already have. Even though this woman wasn’t her mother, Nico clung to her and cried into her shirt as if she was, wanting this woman to be there for her when her mother Lucy Cairns was no longer there to comfort her.

“You did well, Nico,” this woman said.

When Nico let go of her embrace, she saw Kendra’s mother with tears in her eyes and chrysanthemums in her long black hair. She led Nico to the bed where Alice had committed her atrocities over Kendra and Mara in Katherine’s private boudoir and bade her to sit on the bedside.

When Nico did, the woman joined her and said, “I’m Ramona Tellerman, and I want to thank you for looking after Kendra for me,” and she leaned over and kissed Nico’s forehead before transforming into an older woman Nico couldn’t recognize.

“Who are you?” Nico said.

This older woman smiled and said, “It’s been a while since I last saw you, Nico Cairns, but maybe this will help you jog your memory,” and she transformed into a young Gibson girl.

Nico gasped and said, “Amelia Hearn?”

Amelia smiled again and nodded.

“W-why are you—”

Amelia put her finger to her lips and said, “Shhhhh. There’s a reason why your here.”

And before Nico could say anything else, Amelia Hearn transformed into another woman she had not seen since since she had delved after her in the waters of the underground pool during Kendra’s dream dive, a woman she had not hugged since since she had left the Cairns household on that fateful night before their untimely demise. In that space of recognition, with more tears welling up in her eyes, Nico said, “Mom?”

Lucy Cairns smiled and cupped her hands around Nico’s cheeks and planted a kiss on her forehead, then hugged her in a tight embrace and rubbed circles between her shoulder blades as Nico cried into her shirt.

And for the first time since that godless night, Nico felt her mother’s warmth, then noticed her mother’s tears falling on her cheeks. “Mom, are you crying?”

Her mother squeezed her harder, then wiped away her own tears and looked her daughter in the eyes and said, “I’m so sorry, Nico. If it hadn’t been for me, we’d all still be together!”

And she cried more tears and looked away, her face scrunched up in an agony of remorse that hurt Nico to see, yet Nico had to know the truth. It had been on her mind whenever she used to look up into the ceiling of their bedroom in the afterglow of making love to her sister Mara, rubbing Mara’s shoulder blades as the storm of one of her parents’ arguments had subsided into silence. It had been on her mind after Celia had taken her to Katherine’s dream mansion, where she told Celia of her suspicion of Rancaster’s involvement in the deterioration of her parents’ marriage, and it was on her mind now as she looked at her mother crying beside her.

“Mom, look at me,” she said, and her mother raised her gaze.

“What is it, Nico?” Lucy said.

“Why did you leave?”

There was an intake of breath as her mother just looked at her with wide eyes, saying, “Nico, please understand. I love your father more than you know, believe me, but he can be so overbearing at times.”

“Where did you go, Mom?” Nico said.

At first, her mother opened her mouth to say something but then paused for a spell.

When her mother said nothing, Nico said, “Who did you see?”

“Nico, please try to understand,” she said.

“I don’t understand! That’s why I’m asking!”

Lucy Cairns stood up from the beside and backed away from Nico, saying, “I’m really sorry, Nico,” and she turned and was about to head back to the door—

When Ramona Tellerman and Amelia Hearn and a third younger woman that Nico didn’t recognize entered the room, and this third woman closed the door behind her, preventing Lucy from leaving.

While this third woman stood guard in front of the door, Ramona said, “No running away now.”

“Your daughter deserves the truth,” Amelia added.

So a shame-faced Lucy Cairns gulped and looked away from Nico, as the two women led her back over to the bedside and had her sit beside Nico.

Silence reigned for several moments, but when her mother said nothing and just stared down at the floor beneath her feet, Nico said, “Please, tell me what happened, and I’ll try my best to understand.”

“I don’t know,” Lucy said. “Do you really want to get involved in my problems?”

Ramona and Amelia both approached and glowered down at Lucy, making her flinch.

Then Amelia put her hand on her shoulder and said, “Believe me. If there was anything I could do to make this easier on you, I’d do it in a heartbeat, but you need to come clean, first.”

“What are you, my therapist?”

Amelia shook her head and pointed at Nico, saying “Talk to your daughter. She needs to know, and you know it.”

Lucy followed Amelia’s gaze but avoided looking at her daughter, saying, “I can’t. I’m sorry, but I can’t do this,” and she stood up from the bed.

Yet Ramona and Amelia put their hands on Lucy’s shoulders and pushed her back onto the bed.

“Lucy,” Ramona said, “we know you’ve suffered more than any mother should, so we understand why you’re so cagey. But with that said, you’re being really unfair to her.”

Lucy winced and said, “I know, but—”

“I can take it, Mom,” Nico said and put her hand over her mother’s on the bed. “Please, look at me.”

So Lucy looked at Nico but said nothing, as if she was tongue-tied on how to word it in a way that wouldn’t break her daughter’s faith in her and give her another reason to cry.

As such, knowing that her mother wouldn’t say anything without a push, Nico said, “Mom, were you seeing Rancaster?”

At her words, Lucy pulled her hand away and covered her gaping mouth as more tears welled up from wide horrified eyes, then said, “How long did you know about it?”

“For a month,” she said.

“Did you tell Mara about it?” Lucy said.

Nico shook her head and said, “I didn’t wanna make it worse for her,” and she paused for a moment, thinking of all the times she had comforted Mara by doing lewd things with her, and blinked out those memories and looked at her mother. “How did you meet Rancaster?”

“It’s so cliché,” Lucy said, “but after arguing with your father one night, I got fed up and left the house and was about to drive off, but Rancaster came up to the car and asked what was going on. Your father came out when he saw him, but he had your father and me talk it out. When we asked for his name, he introduced himself as Mr. Prospero, not Rancaster. Whenever your father and I started fighting, I’d call for Mr. Prospero, and he’d come out and have us talk things out with him. It started getting better between us after that, but after a while, your father started getting jealous and stopped seeing him with me. So I just started seeing the man alone and talking things out with him, one on one.”

“I see,” Nico said. “Why was Dad jealous?”

“I don’t think your father was jealous, per se,” Lucy said, “but when I started talking about how our fights were affecting you and Mara, that’s when your father stopped coming with me. I thought your father was a bit overprotective of you two, even after Mr. Prospero did so much for us. The man even said that he had his own stepdaughter: I think her name was Auna or something. Anyway, your father didn’t want you and Mara to meet him, which made things worse between your father and me. I eventually stopped seeing Mr. Prospero to cool things off with your father, but that only led to other things we’d argue over. Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore and . . . left the house for the last time.” She then started crying again when she added, “I wanted to see Mr. Prospero again, to have him try to help mend things between your father and me, to help us become a family again,” and she doubled over and buried her face in her hands.

So Nico scooted over and put her hand over her back and rubbed circles over her mother’s shoulder blades.

Then Amelia sat beside Lucy and put her arm over her shoulders, saying, “It’s okay. You’ve said enough.”

Amelia then nodded at Ramona, so she waved over the unknown younger woman standing by the door, at which the woman came over. Ramona then whispered something into her ear, and the woman nodded and approached Lucy Cairns and knelt down before her, till her eyes met Lucy’s where she sat on the bedside.

She said, “Look, I may not have experienced what you’ve gone through, but I know how horrible it feels to realize something’s happened to your daughter, because this Mr. Prospero you speak of was the man who took my daughter away from me. I’ve never met this man before, this Mr. Prospero or Rancaster or whoever he is, but I know he’s evil.”

But Lucy looked at this woman and Ramona in turn, saying, “How did you . . . ?”

“I told both of them what happened to your family, Lucy,” Amelia said, then turned to Bridget. “Tell her what happened to your daughter.”

So Bridget took Lucy’s hands in her own and said, “I died giving birth to Auna, leaving my husband to take care of her. I don’t think my husband ever blamed Auna for my death, and even if some part of him did, he never once let it stop him from being a good father to her, till he started to change and began abusing her. I don’t know if Rancaster had anything to do with that, but it resulted in that man taking her in as his own and changing her into someone she’s not.”

“Oh my God!” Lucy said.

“And when he changed her,” Bridget continued, “I felt something change here,” and she put Lucy’s palm against her chest where the faint astral beat of a living heart throbbed like a drum. “I felt . . . something different about Auna, though I didn’t know what it was.” She then turned to Nico and added, “You saw what happened to her, didn’t you?”

Nico nodded her head and took a deep breath and said, “I saw Auna die and come back as a different person named Alice, and from what I’ve seen of her so far, she’s under Rancaster’s control.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Lucy said, then turned to Bridget: “Why are you telling me?”

“Lucy,” Amelia said beside her, “I know this is hard for you to take, but I have every reason to believe that Rancaster plans on doing something similar to your other daughter, Mara.”

“Oh my God, no!” Lucy said, pulling her hand away from Bridget and cupping her gaping mouth her hands as more tears trailed down her face. “Dear God, no!”

“And it’s not just Mara, either,” she said. “I’ve done a lot of research and found out that Rancaster’s done the same thing to other girls over the centuries, and he tried to do it to my own daughter and even to one of my granddaughters.”

“And right now, Mara’s not the only one in danger,” Ramona added. “My own daughter, Kendra Tellerman, is under similar circumstances.”

“Oh my God!” Lucy said, squelching out more tears from squinting eyes over a grimacing face. “Why’s this happening?”

“I don’t know,” she said, “but we’re trying to help however we can. Rancaster’s actions have touched the lives of all of us here, including me and my husband. My daughter is an orphan because of this guy, but despite everything he’s done, we’re all doing what we can to help find our daughters. And we can’t do it without you.”

Lucy just stared at Ramona, saying, “What do you expect me to do? How can I even help in all this?”

“You were with us, remember?” Bridget said, glaring down at Lucy. “We all gave Amelia our permissions to do this. Are you now saying—”

“Don’t pressure her,” Amelia said, then to Lucy: “It’s all up to you, Lucy. None of us can decide for you.”

At this, Lucy took a deep breath and stood up from the bedside and said, “All right, I’ll do it. Whatever it takes, I’ll do it. I still don’t know if I’ll be able to help, but tell me what to do, and I’ll do it. If it’s for Mara, I’ll do anything.”

“Okay, good,” Amelia said, standing up from the bed and stretching out her hand, where a body-length mirror manifested before her. “Put your hand on this mirror.”

So Lucy put her palm flat against the reflection of Amelia’s mirror and said, “Like this?”

“Perfect,” she said, then put her own hand flat over Lucy’s against the reflection. “Now close your eyes, Lucy, and think of Mara in your mind. Think of her image in your mind as alive and moving as if she were standing before you at this moment.”

And in the reflection of Amelia’s mirror, Nico saw the image of her twin sister manifest inside it dressed in pajamas.

“Do you have her in your mind?” Amelia said.

“Yes, I do,” Lucy said.

“Now imagine Mara taking out a key,” Amelia said, “a very special key to her own heart. Imagine her handing that key to you in your mind.”

And in the mirror, Nico saw her sister reaching into the pocket of her pants and pulling out a long antique key and placing it right up against her mother’s palm in the reflection, shimmering the surface.

“Can you feel that key in your hand?” Amelia said.

“Yes,” Lucy said.

“Close your hand around that key,” Amelia said, “and open your eyes when you feel like you have it.”

And Lucy did just that, clutching the key and opening her eyes, at which the image of Nico’s sister disappeared from the reflection. Lucy pulled her hand back from under Amelia’s palm and looked at the key that Mara had given her, then looked at Bridget and Ramona and said, “Did you get keys like this one?”

And Bridget and Ramona reached into their pockets with Bridget pulling out Auna’s key and Ramona pulling out Kendra’s.

At this, Amelia breathed a sigh of relief and kept her hand over the surface of the mirror. She then looked at Nico still sitting on the bedside and said, “Okay, this is where it gets interesting, Nico. Right now, we’re all inside your mind, and on the other side of this mirror, you’re asleep. We need you to wake up.”

“But I don’t feel like I’m asleep,” she said and pinched her own cheek, making herself wince. “It’s not working. How am I supposed to wake up?”

“Then you’ll just have to wait for Prince Charming,” Amelia said and winked at her. “Or maybe you’re waiting for Princess Beautiful, since I’ve noticed you have a penchant for kissing other girls.”

“Who told you that?” Nico said, looking from a mischievous Amelia Hearn to her shame-faced mother gaping down at her. “It’s not like that, Mom, honest!”

“Oh, but it is,” Amelia said. “Besides your sister, I’ve also seen you kissing one of my granddaughters.”

“And you kissed Kendra, too,” Ramona said.

“And you kissed Auna, as well,” Bridget added.

“Don’t gang up on her like that!” Lucy said and sat back down beside her daughter and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Nico, who else did you kiss?”

“Nobody else, I promise,” she said.

She’s lying, Mrs. Cairns. Nico kissed me, too, someone said inside Nico’s mind, which reverberated through the room they were in and got everybody looking around for the source of that voice. Oooooh, you can’t see me, can you?

“Shiromi, is that you?” Nico said.

Yep! And here’s another smooch for you, Shiromi said.

And all at once, Nico felt a familiar weight pressing down on her lap and a hand cupping the side of her face and the soft warm lips of another girl pressing onto hers, sending color to her cheeks at the déjà vu flashing across her mind’s eye. As such, Nico found herself fainting into her mother’s arms like a falling dream and falling for a time through the rabbit hole of unconscious sleep, down through the slow-wave madness of repressed emotions flooding up her soul with sensations of kissing Mara and Kendra and Celia and Auna and Shiromi . . .

5

It was now 8:35 a.m.

For the last twenty-odd minutes, while Anne kept a lookout around street corners and lanes and rooftops and upper floor windows for signs of Alice’s red musketeers, Stephen had listened to everything Lt. Shaefer and Benson said over his smartphone connection during the ride to the Bangsian hotel. From that moment onwards, everything went to hell for Stephen after Lt. Shaefer and Benson told him about Ronald’s capture at the second drop zone, but Benson’s anomalous intel bamboozled him into silence. Then he called Lt. Shaefer again and asked him if he had sent out his guys to the drop zone, but Lt. Shaefer said he didn’t, so Stephen ordered them grounded at the warehouse until further notice and hung up.

“What is it?” Anne said, but Stephen stayed silent for a bit longer, seeming to mull something over in his mind. “Earth to Steve, what is it?”

Stephen pulled out from his thoughts and said, “Ronnie’s been captured—“

“Ah, fuck!”

“—but something else happened, something big.”

“And what’s that?” Anne said.

“I don’t know,” he said, “but I need to ask to make sure. Did you send out another troop to the second drop zone?”

“What are you talking about?” Anne said, glaring hellfire at her belligerent superior. “I didn’t!”

“Are you sure you didn’t?” he said.

“I’m damn sure! What the hell are you talking about?” Anne said and shoved her finger onto Stephen’s chest. “If you’re still angry at me for not following your orders to the fucking letter—”

“Anne, it’s not that! I assure you it’s not that,” Stephen said. “I’m just asking, because I just got intel from Benson telling me that there was another group charging up the hill and attacking the fort.”

That’s when Anne paused for a spell with wide eyes and gaping mouth. “Hold on,” she said and took out her own smartphone and dialed the number of her sergeant. “Comrades! This is Anne. . . . Listen, did you send out another troop to the second drop zone? . . . Are you sure you didn’t send them out again? . . . I’m asking, because I’ve got Steve here telling me that another group attacked the fort at the second drop zone.” Then Annie paused as she listened to Sgt. Rousseau’s side of events and wrinkled her brows. “Fuck! Are they red musketeers? . . . Who are they then? . . . Are they headed your way?”

“What’s going on?” Stephen said.

Anne put her hand over the speaker and said, “He’s saying there’s an inroad of horseless American cavalrymen stopping by at the hotel.”

“Are they hostile?” he said.

But Anne put her hand up to silence Stephen, and she said to her sergeant, “What are they doing? . . . Wait, WHAT? . . . Are you fucking serious? . . . You’re not drunk, are you? . . . You’re shitting me. . . . All right, I’ll believe it when I see it, but they’re not causing any trouble, are they? . . . Okay, I’ll trust you on this. If they’re not hostile, then I guess it’s okay, but call me if anything happens. Got it? . . . Good. Over and out,” and she hung up and took a deep breath and exhaled, long and slow, and shook her head.

“Anything going on, or what?” he said.

Anne just looked at him and shook her head, then smiled and said, “You’re not going to believe this, but the soldiers that attacked the fort at the second drop zone are none other than the Rough Riders—”

“WHAT?”

“—and Colonel Roosevelt is with them. Sgt. Rousseau says Colonel Roosevelt is waiting for us at the Bangsian, so be on your best behavior when we get there, Steve. You wouldn’t want to lose face in front of the esteemed ghost of a former Commander in Chief now, would you?”

“You’re serious?” Stephen said.

“I’m still incredulous about it myself,” she said, “but Sgt. Rousseau swore on the lives of his children that it’s him.”

Stephen grimaced.

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Anne said, “but this is Sgt. Rousseau saying it. You and I both know the sergeant doesn’t fuck around, especially on matters like that.”

“If that’s the case,” he said, leaning back in his seat and rolling yet another set of variables into today’s looming operation, “then why would such an eminent ghost, much less his entire brigade, take an interest in one of our ops?”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Steve,” Anne said. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

6

It was now 8:40 a.m.

When Nico’s dream-like construct of Katherine’s private boudoir had morphed into Cooley’s underground vault, accompanied with memories of kissing multiple girls lingering in her mind, Nico came to and found herself in a compromising position with Shiromi sitting on her lap and giving her another kiss. And another. And then another. And the worst thing was that Nico was enjoying it, putting her arms around Shiromi’s waist and returning her kisses, heedless of everyone else around her.

That is, until Lucy Cairns pushed Shiromi off of her lap, then got up from the bed and glared at the brazen White Queen who had dared to kiss her daughter like that, giving Nico another reason to want to disappear. At the same moment, Bridget stood back up and gaped at Shiromi, while Akami looked at her white counterpart in agony. And all the while, Ramona and Amelia and Blaze and Cooley stood before Cooley’s mirror, all of them gawking at Shiromi’s brazen action. Only then did Nico notice that she was still holding Shiromi’s hand and that Akami and Blaze and Cooley were no longer holding each other’s hands, nor was Cooley pressing her free hand against her mirror.

So Nico let go of Shiromi’s hand and got up from the bed, wanting to slap her across the face, but did something else, instead. She got in between Shiromi and her mother and said, “Mom, stay calm. Just stay—”

Lucy gaped at her, saying, “Are you serious? She just molested you, and you’re actually—”

“Don’t make it worse, Mom, please!” she said.

Lucy Cairns just stared at Nico for a moment and opened her mouth to say something but stopped herself. So she glared at the hussy cowering behind her daughter and said, “Don’t you ever ever ever do that again! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME? ‘Cause if you don’t, I’ll make you understand with my foot up your ass, got that?”

And before Shiromi yelled back, Akami got up from the bed and grabbed her white counterpart by the arm and said, “Don’t make it worse!” Then to Lucy: “I’m really sorry, Mrs. Cairns. Shiromi isn't always like this, I promise.”

“Geez, I was just waking her up!” Shiromi said and stalked away from the scene, while her red counterpart followed her, trying to explain that she needed to be more tactful.

Lucy was about to follow, not yet ready to let it go, but Nico and Bridget and Ramona and Amelia prevented her, trying to explain that Shiromi was only trying to wake her up, even when it looked totally different. Lucy just stared at Nico and then at the trio of mothers before her, seemingly on the verge of saying something else, but she relented.

After that, Nico stalked after Akami and Shiromi at the double doors of the backroom, saying, “It’s all right now. My mom’s calmed down already,” and she waved them back over.

“Are you sure?” Akami said.

“I’m sure it’s fine now,” Nico said and led the way back to the bed with Akami and Shiromi following in tow.

All three girls sat back down with Akami and Shiromi taking up their original places on either side of Nico, while Akami leaned across Nico’s legs towards her white counterpart and said, “Remember what I told you now.”

“You’re not my mom,” Shiromi said.

“I’m just making sure you get it,” she said.

Shiromi humphed but said nothing.

So Nico put her hand over Shiromi’s hand on the bedside and said, “Thanks for waking me up. Despite everything, you did save me a lot of self-pinching.”

“Ah, a masochist, are you?”

Nico deadpanned. “I can be a sadist, too, if you keep this up.”

“Oooooh, sounds exciting!” Shiromi said.

“Shiromi,” Blaze said, “please stop flirting in front if her mom, or I’ll roast you,” and she and Cooley went over to the table and pulled up another pair of chairs and set them beside the other two they had been sitting in minutes ago.

“Mrs. Wenger, Mrs. Tellerman, Mrs. Hearn, Mrs. Cairns,” Cooley said, “why don’t you all take a seat?” Then Cooley waved Blaze over to the bed and sat on both ends of the bed and had Blaze sitting on the other end, so that Blaze sat by Akami and Cooley sat by Shiromi. “No more weird stuff out of you, okay?”

“I didn’t say anything to you,” Shiromi said.

“Whatever. Just try to be more civil. That’s all I’m asking,” Cooley said before turning to the four new arrivals: “I imagine you all have a lot of questions for us.”

“Yes, we do,” Lucy Cairns said and sat in the first chair, while Bridget sat in the second chair next to her, and Ramona Tellerman and Amelia Hearn sat in the other two chairs next to them.

“Ask away then,” Cooley said.

So Lucy started first, eyeing Nico on the bedside between Akami and Shiromi, and said, “Nico . . . Are you into girls?”

“Mom, please don’t,” Nico said.

“Just tell me the truth,” she said. “Are you actually into girls?”

Nico looked down at her feet, avoiding eye contact with her mother, and just nodded her head. “Are you mad?”

“No, honey, I’m not mad at you,” Lucy said. “I just . . . don’t want you to do that kind of stuff with your sister, okay?”

“Okay,” Nico said.

Then, as if to break the awkward moment between mother and daughter, Shiromi said, “If that’s the case, Mrs. Cairns, then since I’m not her sister, does that mean I can—”

Nico punched Shiromi, saying, “Don’t be a cringe-freak!”

And Cooley said, “Be civil for once, please!”

And Akami stood up, glaring at her white counterpart with her arms akimbo, and said, “Apologize!”

“Geez, you’re all tightwads!” Shiromi said, but when she received glares of hellfire from everyone in the room, especially from Nico and Lucy Cairns, she flinched in acquiescence. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry! I was just joking!”

“Please don’t joke like that,” Cooley said, “especially in front of Mrs. Cairns.”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Shiromi said. “Lay off of it already.”

Then it was Bridget Barton Wenger’s turn, who looked at the uncouth doppelgänger of her daughter that was Shiromi and said, “Please don’t tell me Auna was like this.”

“Oh, no, Mrs. Wenger,” Akami said, looking at Bridget with a placating gesture of her hands. “You’re daughter’s an angel compared to her. It’s just that Shiromi . . . is a bit of an eccentric.”

“And Akami is a bit of a tightwad,” Shiromi added.

Akami and Cooley glared at her, and Nico punched Shiromi’s shoulder again, yet before Shiromi said something awful, Bridget beat her to the punch, saying, “You both said your names are Shiromi and Akami, right?”

Both girls in question looked at the woman and nodded their heads, and Akami said, “Auna gave us those names.”

“Did she now?” she said. “What’s your relationship to her, anyway? And I hope it’s not sexual.”

“I promise you, it’s not,” Akami said, then looked at her white counterpart and turned back to Bridget. “Well, not with me, anyway. For Shiromi, I can only hope not.”

“Hey, I’m not that depraved!” Shiromi said.

“You say that now,” Nico said, “but didn’t you say you taught her how to masturbate?”

“Nico!” Lucy said.

Nico winced, saying, “Sorry.”

“Okay, for your information,” Shiromi said to Nico, “I was just joking. And no,” she added, turning to her red counterpart, “contrary to what you may think, I’ve never done that with Auna. Only with Nico.”

Nico punched her again. “God, you’re such a cringe-freak!”

“In all honesty, though,” Akami said, turning her attention back to Bridget, “Shiromi and I are kind of like Auna’s alter egos. Shiromi is the Id, I’m the Superego, and Auna’s the Ego—”

“—who keeps us from killing each other,” Shiromi added.

“Shiromi!” Akami said.

“But it’s true, isn’t it?” she said and turned back to Bridget. “Mrs. Wenger, Akami and I were just characters from a children’s book, but after Auna named us, we became her best friends, and best friends don’t let each other down.”

“What she’s trying to say,” Akami added, “is that we’re both grateful to your daughter.”

At their words, Bridget wiped a stray tear from her eye and smiled at the Red and White Queens, getting them both flustered at her, and said, “Thank you for being there for her.”

And then it was Ramona Tellerman’s turn, who looked at her new surroundings and spotted a blue musketeer sound asleep on the floor beside the bed and said, “Wait a minute, was he there this whole time?”

Everyone turned to the man in question.

“Yeah,” Nico said. “You just didn’t notice him because of a certain someone next to me.”

“Oh, hardy har har,” Shiromi said.

“Who is he?” Ramona said.

“He’s Monsieur Dolan,” Akami said, “and he’s the reason why we’ve made it back here in one piece.”

“What happened?” she said.

“It’s kind of a long story,” she said.

“We’re all ears then,” Amelia said. “Tell us what happened, and we’ll fill you in on our end.”

“There’s no need, Mrs. Hearn,” Blaze said.

“I’ve put a spell over my mirror while Nico was asleep,” Cooley added. “We’ve already heard what you all said earlier.”

Lucy and Bridget and Ramona traded nervous glances.

“You spied on us?” Lucy said.

Cooley winced but nodded and said, “I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Cairns,” and she turned towards Bridget and Ramona, saying, “And the same goes for both of you, as well,” and then she looked at all three mothers in turn. “I know we’re still strangers to you, but I promise we’ll do everything we can to get your daughters back.”

“So what are we waiting for?” Amelia said, getting up from her chair, and stretched out her hand and manifested a mirror of her own before her.

“But what about him?” Ramona said, pointing to Monsieur Dolan still fast asleep on the floor. “We can’t just leave him here.”

So Akami got off the bedside, saying, “I’ve got an idea. Nico, do you remember kissing Auna to wake her up in Wonderland?”

“Yeah,” she said and looked at the sleeping musketeer. “Wait, you want me to kiss him?”

“Hey, if it worked with Auna,” Shiromi said, “it could work with him, as well.”

“Nico, don’t,” Lucy said, getting up from her chair and grabbing Nico by her wrist. “There’s no way in hell I’m letting you kiss some strange man.”

“I’m just gonna wake him up,” she said. “It’s nothing sexual.”

“That’s not the point!” Lucy said.

“How did he get here, anyway?” Cooley said.

“The same way we got here,” Akami said.

“By putting poppies in your mouths?” she said.

“Yeah,” Akami said.

“How do you even know that?” Shiromi said.

“It’s my spell,” Cooley said, “and since it’s my spell, I’ll do it myself,” and she picked herself up off the bedside and crouched over the sleeping musketeer and placed her hand over the cross of his tabard, where she summoned a magic seal encircling his astral body on the floor. “Who put a sleeper spell on him?”

“I’m pretty sure it was Auna,” Akami said.

“Well, at least it’s easier than a sleeper curse,” Cooley said and closed her eyes for a few moments, till they fluttered open in a trance-like state as she witnessed what Auna had said to an unconscious Monsieur Dolan back in Chess Cathedral. “With this kiss upon thy lips may you open both thine eyes,” and she lowered herself over his face and enacted the counter-spell upon his lips.

And all at once, the man twitched in his sleep and yawned and opened his eyes, looking up at everyone looking down on him, and said, “Where am I? Who are you?”

“Calm down, Monsieur Dolan,” Cooley said. “You’re beneath my mansion, and you’re among friends.”

Then he caught sight of Nico and the Red and White Queens behind her and said, “Oh, thank God you’re safe!” And with the help of Cooley and Blaze grasping both of his hands, he was hoisted onto his feet and stood recovering his balance, then checked his trouser pocket and found nothing there.

“I have it, don’t worry,” Cooley said, digging into the pocket of her cut-off slacks, and gave Monsieur Dolan the key ring with the key attached and turned back to a waiting Amelia Hearn. “We’re ready when you are.”

“Good,” Amelia said and put her hand up against the mirror, which glowed and shimmered at her touch, and turned to everyone in the underground vault. “I must tell you all that this is a bit of a gamble.”

“Why?” Cooley said. “Don’t you know where they are?”

“I don’t, actually,” Amelia said. “Rancaster’s a devious old scoundrel who’s been around longer than all of us combined, so we’re all playing by his rules when we go out there. He’s by far the most dangerous opponent I’ve ever come across, because he has precious few limitations on his power. But from what I’ve gained from meeting him and researching various incidents connected to him, I know that he can’t predict chance outcomes. Hence, if I don’t know where they are, then neither does he.”

“Then how will we find our daughters?” Lucy said.

“You each have your daughter’s key with you,” she said, pointing out the keys in the hands of Ramona Tellerman, Bridget Barton Wenger, and Lucy Cairns. “As long as you have those keys with you, we’ll have a chance at finding them,” and she reached into a jacket pocket and pulled out three enchanted chains and gave one to each of them. “Here. Attach those keys onto these chains and wear it around your necks and keep it hidden beneath your shirts. I know it’s gonna feel a bit uncomfortable, but those keys are your daughters’ lifelines, so keep them hidden.”

And so they threaded their chains through the bows of their keys and snapped the chains closed and hung them about their necks, tucking them past the collars of their shirts.

“Done?” Amelia said.

They each nodded that they were.

“Good,” she said. “Now everybody link your hands with each other and make sure to keep a firm grasp. Since I don’t know where we’re going, we all need to keep in physical contact with each other when we pass through this mirror. The last thing we need is for any of us to turn up missing. All clear?”

They all nodded their heads and linked up hands with each other from Shiromi and Akami and Nico and Lucy Cairns and Bridget Barton Wenger and Ramona Tellerman to Monsieur Dolan and Blaze and Cooley and Amelia Hearn, who placed her hand over the glowing reflection and entered first. So as one continuous train, all ten members of the search party entered the mirror, one by one. And all the while, Nico found herself wondering where Mara could have gone and praying for her safety as she followed her mother through the reflection, followed in tow by Akami and Shiromi.

7

It was now 8:42 a.m.

By the time Stephen and Anne arrived at the Bangsian, their yokai runner had just about run himself out of steam and slowed down to a stroll upon sighting the neon signage of the hotel. From their rickshaw, Stephen and Anne just stared at the massive group of on-foot cavalrymen, the so-called Rough Riders, standing guard around the premises of the hotel. This group consisted of cowboys and Texas Rangers and Ivy League students and even Native Americans from the Cherokee and Chickasaw and Pawneee tribes, all of them in uniform, many of them gathered around a quartet amongst them and singing along to a glee song.

Stephen and Anne alighted from the phantom rickshaw and thanked their staunch yokai runner for his haste and bravery, then approached the group of soldiers, waving their hands.

A slight young gentleman with a tilted hat and a slight mustache came up to them and identified himself as Pvt. Benjamin Colbert or Pvt. Benjamin for short, then said, “Are you two here to see the Colonel?”

“Yes, we are,” Stephen said.

So the private led Stephen and Anne towards the entrance, while the other Rough Riders parted before them and greeted the new arrivals with nods of their heads and tilts of their hats. The private led them into the reception area, where the concierge and several of the bandaged men from Sgt. Rousseau’s troop greeted the trio with a succession of nods.

Stephen stopped and said, “Where’s the sergeant?”

“He’s upstairs with the Colonel,” one said.

“How are you all faring?” Anne said.

“Well enough, considering the circumstances,” another man said. “Don’t worry, ma’am. We’ll be fine.”

With that, Pvt. Benjamin led Stephen and Anne down a side hall towards an elevator at the end of the hall and pressed a button, bringing down the elevator from one of the upper floors. As they waited, Anne said to the private, “You served with the Colonel in battle, private?”

“Yes, I did,” Benjamin said.

“How was he?” she said.

“He’s a good man and a great leader,” Benjamin said. “You’ll know when you meet him.”

When the double doors to the elevator opened, the trio stepped inside, and Pvt. Benjamin pressed the Floor 11 button, closing the doors and taking them up, while Scott Joplin’s “The Entertainer” played on the overhead speakers.

When the double doors opened again, Pvt. Benjamin led them down the left side hall, till they reached the double doors of a big suite, where another private stood guard.

Both privates exchanged nods, and Pvt. Benjamin knocked on the door, saying, “They’re here, Colonel.”

“Ah, bully! Bring them in,” Col. Roosevelt said.

Pvt. Benjamin opened the door for the new arrivals and stood guard by his fellow private. So Stephen and Anne stepped inside and saw Col. Roosevelt and Sgt. Rousseau and another member of the Rough Riders standing around a large desk consulting a topographic map laid over it. At the behest of Col. Roosevelt, Sgt. Rousseau went to the window and pulled back the curtains, letting the morning light into the suite, so they could see the details of the map better, and resumed his station at the desk.

Stephen and Anne halted before that desk, and the trio of men looked up.

“That’s them, sir,” Sgt. Rousseau said to the Colonel.

So Col. Roosevelt waved them over, saying, “Come and introduce yourselves. None of us are strangers here.”

So both approached the desk with Stephen saying, “I’m Inspector Stephen Larking of the Phantom Office.”

“And I’m Lt. Anne Granger,” Anne said, “also of the Phantom Office.”

“I’ve heard from Sgt. Rousseau here that there’s another lieutenant with you,” Roosevelt said.

“That’s Lt. Shaefer, sir,” Stephen said. “I’ve ordered him and his men to stand by at the third drop zone, till further notice.”

“And where’s that?” he said.

“At a nondescript warehouse,” Stephen said.

“I see, I see,” he said and turned his attention to his fellow Rough Rider. “Introduce yourself, lieutenant.”

The lieutenant nodded and said, “I’m Lt. Scott Hamilton of the 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry.”

Stephen and Anne traded looks.

“Scott Hamilton?” Stephen said. “As in, Scott Hamilton of the Pinkerton Detective Agency?”

“You’ve heard of me?” Scott Hamilton said.

“Yes,” he said. “My brother and I have investigated one of your previous cases concerning the disappearance of Tobias Rancaster’s son, Aaron Rancaster.”

Scott Hamilton paused for a moment, eyeing Stephen, and said, “You wouldn’t know a guy named Leon Larking, would you?”

“I do,” Stephen said. “He’s my ancestor.”

“Ah, I see,” Scott said. “You do share the same surname as him. I was wondering—”

“Gentlemen,” Col. Roosevelt said, “I hate to interrupt your pleasantries, but we have a lot of work ahead of us.”

“Wait, Mr. Roosevelt,” Stephen said, “if I may be so bold.”

“You are bold,” the man said. “Go on.”

But Stephen found himself tongue-tied at the expectant look of this great man before him, this paragon of American grit and courage. Nonetheless, he regained his composure and said, “With all due respect, sir, how are you involved in this? I was only given one battalion for this op.”

“One battalion, you say?” Col. Roosevelt said. “I’d say you need a brigade at the very least for an operation like this! And to answer your question, it was Scott here who convinced me to volunteer my Rough Riders to help you out.”

“But why?” he said.

“Because I asked him to,” Lt. Scott Hamilton said. “I’ve heard that my son, Ronald Hamilton, volunteered for your operation. I tried contacting him and then your Phantom Office, but I couldn’t reach either. So I asked Col. Roosevelt for assistance, which took quite a bit of convincing, but—”

“—but I was testing you, lieutenant,” Col. Roosevelt said. “I just wanted to see that you’re dead serious about what you’re asking for, and you were, and here we are.” Then the man turned to Stephen and added, “What about you, old boy? How are you embroiled in all of this?”

“It’s the same as you, sir,” Stephen said. “I got involved in this whole thing a month ago at the behest of a woman named Lima Hearn, who has been abroad for several months now across Europe investigating something connected to her family. Lima had asked me to investigate similar cases here in this town that fit with her investigations in Europe, so I got Lt. Shaefer and Todd Curvan and Ronald Hamilton to help me. And a little later on, I had my brother Randal and Lt. Anne join in, and that’s how our investigation turned into this op.”

“Inspector Larking,” Col. Roosevelt said, who eyed Stephen as if he were sighting the iron sights of a rifle onto a bull’s eye, “please answer me truthfully. What exactly are we dealing with here? I don’t mean to pry, but I’m just asking, because after listening to everything Lt. Scott Hamilton said about his investigations on these matters, I don’t believe we’re dealing with a human enemy. What do you know about this?”

“I’ll make it brief, sir,” Stephen said. “We’re dealing with a powerful vampire who adopts many names, some of which are made up and some of which are taken from the names of the dead.”

“You mean,” Roosevelt said, “he goes by various legends?”

“Yes, sir,” he said, “but he came here without using any documents. He came here possessing the bodies of the dead and assumed their identities. The name he goes under right now is Aaron Rancaster, taken from a five-year-old boy who died of mysterious causes, but his death was covered up.”

“Ah, yes,” Roosevelt said. “Scott here told me about that. Do you have any idea who this ‘Rancaster’ is?”

“Yes,” Stephen said and put his hands on the edge of the desk. “His real name is Vlad III, otherwise known as Vlad the Impaler, but he’s known to everyone else as Dracula.”

The Colonel opened his mouth to say something, then paused for a bit and said, “From Stoker’s novel? Are you serious?”

“I am, sir,” Stephen said.

“And this woman who asked you to investigate, this Lima Hearn,” Roosevelt said. “Who is she exactly?”

“She’s one of Rancaster’s descendants,” Stephen said, “and she got involved in all this when Rancaster killed her mother, Amelia Hearn. This Rancaster has dogged Lima’s family for generations up to the present day with one of her daughters, Katherine Hearn, as one of his latest victims. I think Rancaster wants to take the Hearn family back into his fold. And this morning, I’ve also found out that his influence has touched the daughters of other families, as well, just to get at the daughters of the Hearn family, which has resulted in many deaths.”

“My God,” Col. Roosevelt said under his breath, then raised his fingers to his eyes. “My God, if something like that were to happen to Alice and Ethel, I’d enter Hell to hang that bastard myself! Inspector Stephen, my Rough Riders and I are at your service,” and he offered to shake Stephen’s hand.

Stephen smiled and shook it, saying, “Glad to have you aboard, sir, but can I ask you something?”

“Yes,” Roosevelt said. “What is it?”

“The second drop zone at the old fort,” Stephen said. “I received word from Lt. Shaefer and Benson that they saw you and your Rough Riders attacking that place. Why did you?”

“I thought it would be easy,” Col. Roosevelt said.

“Easy, sir?”

“Yes,” he said. “It worked before when I made my Rough Riders charge up San Juan Hill during the war, but those red musketeer girls thwarted our charge up the hill towards their old fortifications somehow. I just don’t know how they did it. I still can’t make heads or tails of it.”

“What happened, sir?” Stephen said.

“I’m not sure what happened,” the Colonel said.

“Just tell us exactly what you saw when you and your Rough Riders made that charge,” he said. “Was there anything unusual that happened at the time?”

“Yes, but it happened so suddenly,” Col. Roosevelt said, stroking part of his mustache. “One moment, we charged up that hill towards their bulwarks, and the next moment, we’re clear across the field from our former position.”

“Mr. Roosevelt,” Stephen said, “did you by any chance find another person amidst your ranks during your charge?”

“What other person?” he said.

“Another man who was not within your ranks,” Stephen said, “one wearing civilian clothes instead of the cavalry uniform of your Rough Riders?”

“I don’t know,” Col. Roosevelt said. “If there was, I didn’t notice, because mortar shells were exploding all around us as we ascended that hill. You can’t expect me to notice one man amidst all that.” Then he turned to his fellow Rough Rider and said, “Did you notice anyone else there, Lieutenant?”

“No, I didn’t,” Scott Hamilton said.

Roosevelt turned back to Stephen. “Why do you ask?”

“I sent a fire team up there to scout the area,” Stephen said and looked Scott in the eye. “It was composed of Benson and Cory and Ronald, your son, Mr. Hamilton. I sent them out, and later on, Benson told me that he and Cory saw Ronnie disappear in front of them during the charge up the hill.”

“Fuck!” he said, slamming his fist on the desk. “Don’t tell me. For God’s sake, don’t tell me!”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Hamilton,” Stephen said.

“Fuck!” he said again.

Then it was Anne’s turn, who said, “Mr. Roosevelt, you said you and your men were charging up the hill, right?”

“Yes,” Roosevelt said, “that’s correct.”

“And then you suddenly found yourself on the other side of the field, right?”

“Yes, that’s correct,” he said.

“Mr. Roosevelt,” Anne said, “I think I know what happened.”

“Then tell me,” he said.

“I think,” Anne said, “that a magic seal surrounding the fort must have teleported you and your Rough Riders across that field.”

“Wait, Anne,” Stephen said, “you mentioned ending up near the Dragon Volant earlier. You think there’s a connection?”

“I do,” she said, nodding her head, “and I can’t believe I didn’t see it sooner. Do you remember our op?”

“Yeah,” he said. “It was for Ronnie, Todd, and Lt. Shaefer to get to the first drop zone at the clothing store, while Lt. Shaefer’s men were to head towards the third drop zone at the warehouse, while you were to lead your men to the second drop zone at the abandoned fort. All three of you were to mobilize from these drop zones and head towards the target area, the Dragon Volant. Did you figure out what happened to you and your men at the second drop zone?”

“Wait,” Col. Roosevelt said before Anne said more, looking from Lt. Anne to Inspector Larking and back to Lt. Anne. “I’m in the dark here. Can either of you explain?”

“You see, Colonel,” Anne said, “before our troubles started, my men and I were all headed toward the second drop zone without encountering anyone else there. But as we were about to enter the fort, we found ourselves near the Dragon Volant three miles away. Just as we got our bearings, we came across a group of red musketeer girls pursuing two other girls.”

“Two other girls?” Roosevelt said.

“By any chance,” Stephen said, “did those two girls happen to look like the red musketeers?”

“Yes,” Anne said, “and I yelled for them to get down before we fired a volley at those musketeers. But those blasted girls caught us off guard, and we sustained heavy losses. Not to mention everything Alice did to us out there!”

“Alice?” Col. Roosevelt said. “You mean my daughter?”

“No, not your daughter, sir,” Anne said. “It’s a different Alice, Alice Liddell.”

“I see,” the Colonel said.

So Stephen came back to the point, saying, “Anne, when you saw those two girls, did you get their names?”

“No, I didn’t,” Anne said. “Why do you ask?”

“Just before I entered the Daimyo next door,” Stephen said, “I called the Dragon Volant and got their names from the concierge there. He said their names were Akami and Auna. Do any of you recognize those names?”

They all shook their heads.

“All right,” Stephen said. “Go on, Anne.”

“Anyway,” Anne continued, looking at the Colonel, “we found ourselves in a different spot when we were about to enter the fort, just as you and your Rough Riders ended up in a different spot when you tried to do the same thing. Do you see a similarity here?”

“Yes,” Roosevelt said, “but it’s not much of a similarity. We only ended up on the other side of the field,” and he pointed to a spot on the map indicating the other side of a designated field, named ‘Flanders Field.’ “We ended up right there, but you ended up three miles away.”

That’s when Stephen caught onto Anne’s drift and said, “I think she’s right, sir. How many of your men charged up that hill this morning?”

“Over 2,000 strong,” Col. Roosevelt said.

“And only 150 men accompanied me there,” Anne added.

“Which means,” Stephen said, leaning over the map in front of Roosevelt and Sgt. Rousseau and Lt. Scott Hamilton and Lt. Anne, “that when you both tried to enter the fort, the seal surrounding it had different effects depending on how many people tried to enter,” and he circled the fort with his finger. “Mr. Roosevelt, based on your observations, you entered with so many people that the seal could only teleport you a short distance away. Anne, based on your observations, you entered with far fewer people, so it teleported you a greater distance away. And based on what Benson told me over the phone, Ronald Hamilton must’ve been teleported even further away to a place we don’t know yet. As such, the larger the number of people attempting to enter the seal surrounding the fort, the smaller the effect that seal has on everyone entering the fort.”

“Strength in numbers,” Anne said.

“That’s right,” Stephen said.

“Ah, bully!” Col. Roosevelt said. “If we can muster up a corps or even an entire army, then we’ll overrun them, just as we did at San Juan Hill!” At this intelligence, he clapped Stephen on his shoulder and smiled at him, saying, “Good man! Good man!”

“Thank you, sir,” Stephen said.

“Mr. Roosevelt,” Anne said, “if you’re looking for more reinforcements to help you charge up that hill, I know of two sources that can help you—”

“Ah, bully!” Roosevelt said.

“—though one is preoccupied at the moment,” she added, “and the other hasn’t been revealed as of yet.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Just tell me.”

“One is Wantowin Battles,” she said, “but before I say anything further about him, let me ask you: was there anything you’ve noticed about those red musketeer girls when you charged up the hill with your Rough Riders?”

“Well,” the colonel said, “they all seemed rather young to be manning a fort like that. The minimum age for enlistment is 18, last time I checked, but the most striking thing I’ve noticed about them, at least from what I’ve managed to discern during the charge, was that they all seemed to be the same person.”

“Mr. Roosevelt,” she said, “have you ever encountered anything like that before?”

“Never,” he said.

“Well, I have,” Anne said. “I’ve encountered those red musketeer girls earlier today just after my men and I got moved from the second drop zone at the old fort to the premises of the Dragon Volant, where Alice turned the rest of us into clones of herself, except for me, Cory, and Benson. The fact is, those red musketeer girls you saw, Mr. Roosevelt, were all Alice’s clones.”

“My God,” Roosevelt said under his breath.

At her words, Stephen thought back on all the details he and Randal had unearthed during their investigation and all the observations he had heard from everyone at the Hearn household and said, “So it’s similar to Rancaster’s M.O., in which he takes over the bodies of the the recently dead to make copies of himself. The only difference is that he only makes one copy of himself at a time and assumes the identity of the dead as a cover, whereas Alice can make multiple copies of herself without any need for assuming another identity.”

“Exactly,” Anne said, “which brings me to Wantowin Battles. Mr. Battles can create clones of himself just like Alice, but without the need for turning others into himself. He just multiples himself as needed.”

“He sounds like a one-man army!” Roosevelt said.

“Indeed, he is,” Anne said, “but he’s not available right now.”

“What’s he doing then?” he said. “Do you know?”

“Indeed, I do,” Anne said and looked at Scott Hamilton’s face. “At the moment, Wantowin Battles is with Lewis Carroll, and they’re both looking for your son, Ronald Hamilton.”

And Scott’s reaction was immediate, for he learned over the desk and said, “Do you know where he is?”

“I’ve only heard about it from Lewis Carroll himself,” she said, “but he said he found him in an underground place, though he called him Mr. Foster at the time. It wasn’t until I joined Steve’s operation that I found out ‘Mr. Foster’ was an alias for Ronald Hamilton. That’s all I know so far.”

“Whoa, wait just a minute!” Stephen said, looking at his lieutenant as if she were a foreign combatant and wondering who she really was. “Why didn’t I know about this?”

“You barely mentioned a line about Ronnie’s capture to me on our way here,” she said. “And with everything going on all at once, I didn’t make the connection until this meeting in this room just a few moments ago.”

“But what about this Battles guy and—”

“Don’t go shifting the blame on me!” Anne said. “Ronnie’s disappearance happened under your watch, Steve,” and she jabbed her finger at his chest, adding, “after you ordered a fire team to check out the second drop zone.”

Everyone was silent after Stephen’s argument with Anne, so Stephen took a deep breath and exhaled, placing one hand over the edge of the desk and leaning against it as if he was leaning on a cane. Earlier this morning, he was at the Daimyo informing the people at the Hearn household about his findings on the case and listening to the observations of the witnesses, all of which seemed like a distant memory to him now.

So Stephen checked his watch and said, “It’s not even nine o’clock yet, and already so much has happened.”

“That’s the fog of war, Inspector,” Roosevelt said. “We can’t always account for everything as they happen under normal conditions, and our current conditions are anything but normal. All we can do is manage with what we currently have on hand,” and he turned to Anne and added, “And you seem to be privy to information that even your superior doesn’t know about. Do you mind filling in the details?”

Now it was time for Lt. Anne Granger to spill the beans, so she said, “Steve, you said it yourself. Our enemy uses multiple identities as part of his M.O. That’s what I’m doing, as well, and I’m only telling you all this,” she added, looking from Inspector Stephen Larking and Sgt. Rousseau to Lt. Scott Hamilton and Col. Roosevelt, “because I trust you as worthy allies in this endeavor.”

And that’s when it hit Stephen about Anne’s unaccountable actions this morning, making movements and issuing orders without his knowledge, till after the fact. He said, “Anne, are you undercover right now?”

“I am. In fact, ’Anne Granger’ is just an alias,” she said and backed a few paces from her peers, then pulled out a large handkerchief out of her right sleeve and spread it like a small curtain before her onlookers. With it spread thus, she bent down and covered her feet and the lower part of her legs with it and raised it up along the silhouette of her body and, like a magician, transformed into a woman wearing a pre-World War I military uniform, complete with frogging over her shoulders, a knee-length skirt and high boots over her legs, and a tall shako atop her head. “My real name and rank is General Jinjur, a loyal subject and retainer of Princess Ozma of Oz.”

8

It was now 8:55 a.m.

Colbie had read the first part of the novella, as her mother was waiting for the cross traffic to dwindle enough for her to follow Connie’s car into Burnside Way where ambulances and cabs and other vehicles funneled into designated parking lots on the premises of the Nayland Hospital. Yet for the next few moments, Colbie was too absorbed in Amelia Hearn’s story to notice. For all she knew, the hospital was miles away in another country, while Colbie herself lingered over the page with her mind’s eye still swimming in the details of the story. She envied Amelia’s heady description and style and character interaction and tension-building, letting her fly through the pages in the twenty-odd minutes she had been reading.

Only when her mother made the left turn did Colbie look up from her trance-like state over the page and find Connie at the edge of the crosswalk waving at them from a nearby parking lot.

“We’re here already?” Colbie said.

“Yep,” Leslie said, making another left into the parking lot where Connie had entered. “How’s the book? Is it good?”

“Oh, yeah,” Colbie said. “I never thought she could write.”

“Me, neither,” Leslie said and turned into the parking space in between a sedan and an SUV, then threw the clutch into park and engaged the parking brake and turned off the ignition. “Who knows? Maybe you could learn a few things from her.”

“Maybe,” she said, wondering about the woman known as the Blood Rose Witch, then: “Mom, why did you bring me along?”

“I brought you here to learn something,” Leslie said and took off her seatbelt.

“Learn what?” she said, taking off her own seatbelt.

“I won’t give you all the answers, Colbie,” Leslie said. “Learn to think for yourself, first, and then decide what to do next. Now come on,” and she got out of the car and shut the door behind her.

Colbie followed suit, taking Amelia’s book with her and putting it into her jacket pocket, then shut the door and followed her mother across the lot and met up with Connie by the walkway. As Colbie tailed her mother and Connie down the crosswalk and towards the hospital’s entrance, she noticed the pair talking in hushed tones between themselves again, making her wonder why they brought her along. The sliding double doors whooshed open, and Colbie followed them towards the receptionist and waited as Connie explained why they were here, but the man said that they can’t enter a restricted area, because the Crime Scene Unit investigators from the Phantom Office were still processing the evidence.

So Connie did something Colbie had never seen her do before, taking out a wallet and flashing a Phantom Office PI license and badge, and showed both of them to the receptionist, saying, “I’m with the Phantom Office, and if you don’t believe me, I can also call up Randal Larking, one of the investigators on Mara Cairns’ case. He’s the guy who sent me here.”

“Oh, no need, ma’am. I didn’t realize,” the receptionist said, then looked at Colbie and Leslie. “What about those two?”

“They’re with me,” she said.

With that, the receptionist had an orderly lead the trio through the corridors of open doors with nurses checking up on various patients in curtained-off hospital beds in each room, till they had reached a corner between two corridors with yellow police tape cordoning off the area surrounding Mara’s hospital room. The door into the room was open, and three crime scene investigators were still at work, the first following up on witness statements, the second processing the hospital bed area with diagrams and photographs, and a third reviewing security camera footage of the area on a laptop at the edge of the cordoned-off area.

9

It was now 8:57 a.m.

After checking her watch, Connie asked Leslie to keep watch over Colbie, while she talked to one of the CSIs working the scene, and Leslie nodded her head. Connie then approached the yellow tape and waved her hands to catch the attention of the third CSI sitting on the bench, who got up from looking at the copies of footage files downloaded onto his laptop and greeted her with a smile.

“You’re pretty early,” the CSI said. “Did Steve send you?”

“Randal, actually,” she said.

“Where is he?”

“At the Hearn household,” Connie said, “attending to Kendra.”

“I heard something happened to her.”

“Something did,” she said but turned the subject onto less dangerous waters. “How long will this take?”

“We’re about a third of the way through processing it,” he said. “We’ll finish by early evening for sure, late afternoon if nothing else pops up.” Then he looked at Colbie and her mother and said, “Are they with you?”

She looked behind her and said, “Yeah, they’re with me. Did anything interesting pop up so far?”

“It’s this thing,” he said and showed her a still frame of the camera footage and rewound the footage back and replayed it, wherein it showed Mara asleep in the hospital bed, till the footage became grainy with static interference and glitched out before coming back on a few seconds later, save for—

“She’s gone,” Connie said. “How’s that even possible?”

“I’m still trying to figure that out,” the CSI said. “How long are you staying here?”

“I’m just waiting for you to finish up, so I can do my part,” she said. “Let me know when you’re done.”

“Will do,” the CSI said.

“When will you send that footage to Randal?”

“As soon as I’m done looking through the rest of the footage,” he said, and with that, he returned to his former station on the edge of the cordoned-off area and sat on a bench and looked through more footage.

10

It was now 8:59 a.m.

Colbie just stood there, gaping at Connie, who took out her smartphone and contacted Randal and informed him of what she and Leslie and Colbie had been up to in the past half hour at the Arcana Bookstore and the Nayland Hospital, including what the CSI had just shown her on his laptop.

At this, Colbie reached over and pulled on the sleeve of her mother’s jacket.

“What?” Leslie said.

“Is there something I should know?” Colbie said.

Her mother stared at her for a spell, then said, “Yeah,” and she led her to a bench on the opposite wall to the cordoned-off area and sat down, patting a space beside her.

“What’s going on?” Colbie said.

“First of all,” Leslie said, glancing at Connie talking to Randal on her smartphone, “was there anything you noticed about the way Connie does things?”

She looked over at Connie, still talking with Randal on her smartphone, and back to Connie at the nurse’s office in Shad-Row Academy yesterday morning and said, “Well, besides using me and my friends for her dream experiments, she has us collect donations from the Post Office, and we’re the only three volunteers left in her program. She also mentioned something about a connection between the Cairns case and the lack of volunteers, but she wasn’t sure how at the time.”

“Did she elaborate on that connection?” Leslie said.

Colbie paused for a spell, thinking back to Connie’s mentioning something about the Cairns twins after Colbie and Kendra and Celia left for the day, and said, “She said that Mara and Nico had volunteered, but that was last week.”

“Exactly,” Leslie said. “Keep going.”

“Wait a minute,” Colbie said as a connection surfaced through her thoughts, looking into her mother’s expectant face at some development just below the surface. “Mom, did Connie tell you about all this?”

At this, Leslie nodded and said, “You’re almost there.”

And taking that nod as her clue, Colbie remembered her mother talking to Connie about something in hushed tones at the breakfast table earlier this morning and said, “Mom, what were you and Connie talking about during breakfast?”

Leslie smiled and said, “You passed.”

“I . . . I what?” Colbie said. “How did I pass?”

“You passed by asking the right question,” Leslie said and gave her a congratulatory pat on her shoulder. “I had a feeling you were paying attention, which is more than I can say for Celia and her sisters. That’s why you’re here, and they’re not.”

“So what were you talking about?” she said.

“Take a guess,” Leslie said. “You might be right.”

“Were you talking about Mara and Nico?”

At this, Leslie nodded and smiled again, then said, “Connie told me that after Mara and Nico came in and volunteered last week she wanted to introduce them this week, so you and your friends could guide them through one of her dream experiments, but when the Cairns family turned up missing at the start of this week, Connie contacted me about it and explained what had happened. This was before you and your friends pulled that suicide mission in the Rancaster district, so when I received a phone call from Detective Dolan about it, I dropped everything to check up on you three. After what Connie told me, I thought the same thing had happened to you and your friends, but thank God it wasn’t the case. Anyway, do you remember how Connie assessed you three for your first dream dive experiment?”

Colbie nodded and said, “By placing a seal on us and examining our dreams while we slept.”

“Yep,” Leslie said. “Connie did the same thing for Mara and Nico, and guess what she found out.”

“Something bad?” she said.

“Not exactly bad,” Leslie said, “but it’s definitely telling. You’ve heard everything that I’ve heard when Randal and Steve interviewed all of us at the Hearn house, so I need you to think critically here, Colbie. Based on this morning’s interview and what we saw at the Arcana Bookstore, what did you notice about the way Rancaster operates?”

For a time, Colbie just stared at her mother, stared at her transformation from the worn-out husk last night to the bright-eyed and alert woman before her now. She gulped down her qualms, rolling her mother’s question through her head, and said, “Rancaster uses proxies.”

“And he’s used several already,” Leslie said, “including the three Müller sisters, then Alice and Lima, and even Kathy, but proxies have their limits. Based on what you saw in the Arcana Bookstore, what else do you think he uses?”

So Colbie paused for a few moments and reviewed everything she heard and saw this morning and everything she experienced in last night’s nightmare of a dream dive in her mind, thinking back to her fight with Alice Liddell in that dream. She said, “I fought Alice to a stalemate in Kathy’s ballroom, because I couldn’t escape using the doors. They were all locked in place, as if . . . as if . . .”

“You’re almost there,” Leslie said, smiling.

“The location!” Colbie said.

“Bingo!”

“If Rancaster takes over the location,” Colbie said, “his proxies can infiltrate. What happened in the Arcana Bookstore and in Kathy’s dream mansion and even in the Rancaster district—it all fits. He put all of those places under quarantine!”

“Exactly,” Leslie said. “Based on that, who are the proxies that Rancaster used in the past three days? I’ll give you a hint: you’ve already named one of them.”

“Alice,” she said.

“Yep,” Leslie said. “There are five more.”

“Auna,” she said.

“Four more.”

“Mara and Nico,” Colbie said.

“Two more.”

But Colbie drew a blank and said, “Who are the other two?”

“Think, Colbie,” Leslie said. “Who else has been through what you’ve been through but isn’t here with us right now?”

“Can you be more specific?”

“She’s brash and acts before she thinks,” Leslie said, “and drives her sisters crazy.”

Colbie gaped and said, “Celia, seriously?”

“I’m serious,” Leslie said. “Steve said it himself: Celia’s name is an anagram of Alice’s name. That’s why Lima told Kathy to keep that knowledge to herself when she told her everything, and that’s why Kathy’s been so cagey about everything with her sisters.”

“And that’s why Kathy told you and me, instead, right?”

“Exactly,” Leslie, “and we also listened to Celia’s account of Rancaster forcing her to shoot Auna in her dream last night. Now do you get it?”

Colbie nodded her head.

“Okay, good,” Leslie said. “One more.”

“I don’t know,” Colbie said. “Who else could there be?”

“I’ll give you another hint,” Leslie said. “She’s the mother of Mara and Nico.”

“You’re kidding,” Colbie said. “Lucy Cairns? By how?”

“Think about it, Colbie,” Leslie said. “You’ve listened to everything that was said during this morning’s interview, so think about it. What did Randal say about her in connection to Rancaster? Do you remember?”

So she thought back on Randal’s exact words on that occasion and said, “He said something about Lucy Cairns sharing the same name as Lucy Westenra from Stoker’s novel.”

“And what did Steve say about her?” Leslie said.

“Lucy has the letter L in her name,” Colbie said, but there was an inconsistency about that part of the theory. “Wait, Mom, what about—”

“I know what you’re thinking,” Leslie said, “but save that thought for later. In addition to Lucy, her husband Paul has the same letter, too.”

“I know, but what about Mara and Nico and Auna?” Colbie said. “They don’t have an L in their names, so how are they Rancaster’s proxies? It doesn’t fit the pattern of what we were talking about this morning.”

“Save that thought for later,” Leslie said. “Based on what you’re thinking right now, what does that tell you about Mara and Nico and Auna?”

“What are you getting at?” Colbie said.

“Think, Colbie, think!” Leslie said. “Celia said it herself, and you were there with me when she said it.”

“They all have free will,” Colbie said.

“And what did Steve say,” Leslie said, “in response to Celia’s observation?”

Colbie just stared at her mother’s expectant face as it dawned on her what she was getting at and said, “Rancaster has more than one way of influencing people.”

“That’s right,” Leslie said. “He picks out vulnerable women who’ll follow him out of their own free will, specifically those whom Rancaster met in person when they were in trouble, which brings us back to what Connie and I were talking about during breakfast. After Celia brought up free will with Steve, Connie discussed it with me while the Hearn sisters were goofing off during breakfast. Even after Celia gave us a major clue, Kathy and Maddy and Celia were too hung up on themselves to see its importance to the case. That’s why I was upset with them earlier, and that’s why they’re not here with us right now.

“Anyway, as I was saying,” she continued, “when Connie brought it up with me, she also brought up Mara and Nico volunteering for her program last week, because they were having family problems with their parents fighting all the time. When she asked them why they were fighting, they told her it was over another man who was helping them with their issues.”

“Did they get his name?” Colbie said.

“Not at first,” Leslie said, “but they both saw the man when their parents’ argument spilled outside the house, and he was there calming things down for them. This man helped their parents, and once they got a chance to meet this person, who introduced himself as Mr. Prospero, they both started seeing this man in their dreams. That’s why they sought out Connie and volunteered for the same program that you and your friends are on. They were looking for help, so Connie put a seal on them and told them to keep it on them over the weekend, so she could examine their dreams while they slept.

“But here’s where it gets crazy,” she continued. “After she examined their dreams, Connie told me that she completely forgot what she saw after the examination. That’s a big red flag there. What’s more, she experienced nightmares about someone or something trying to invade her dreams, so Connie wanted to talk to Mara and Nico ASAP on Monday this week. Guess what happened on that day.”

“The Cairns family disappeared,” Colbie said.

“Exactly,” Leslie said. “When the news about it came up, Connie called me and asked me to come over to the nurse’s office at Shad-Row Academy. I was on my way there, but then I got a call from Roy telling me to get to the Police Station. I had to call Connie and inform her about it before coming to the Police Station.” Here, Leslie took a deep breath and said, “My God, I’ve never had that many things happen to me in one day.”

“Before all of that happened,” Colbie said, “did Connie find out what happened in their dreams?”

“She never got the chance,” Leslie said, “but that’s why we’re here. After those guys are done,” and she pointed out the three CSIs still processing the scene, “we’ll do the same thing we did at the Arcana Bookshop, and we’ll do more than just watch. Connie thinks that Rancaster met the Cairns twins last week in the guise of Mr. Prospero, so she thinks that whatever she couldn’t remember during her dream dive into their dreams last week had something to do with their disappearance this week.”

Then Colbie paused, thinking over the implications of Connie and Leslie’s prior knowledge, and asked, “Why didn’t you and Connie bring this up back at the Hearn house?”

“She asked me not to bring it up,” Leslie said.

“But why?” Colbie said.

“I don’t know for sure,” Leslie said. “When I asked her why, she said she didn’t want to influence anyone else during the interview with that information.”

“She said the same thing when we were in the nurse’s office,” Colbie said, thinking back to the morning when Connie had given Colbie and Celia and Kendra the Cairns twins’ medical documents, then paused yet again over her mother’s reasoning and saw a contradiction or even a double standard. “Mom, you told me, ‘No more secrets,’ so what’s going on? Is there anything you and Connie aren’t telling me?”

“That’s why you’re here,” Leslie said. “Out of everyone involved in this whole mess, you’re the outsider with no prior stake in all this. That’s why Connie asked me to bring you along with us, because you stand the least chance of having your memories altered or influenced by Rancaster.”

But then Colbie said, “What about Celia and her sisters? Aren’t their memories clear like mine?”

Leslie frowned, looking at the floor, and said, “You’re probably right, but from what I’ve seen this morning, I can’t really depend on them. For now, you and I are all Connie’s got. Do you have that book on you?”

“Yeah,” Colbie said and took it out from her jacket pocket and handed it to her mother.

“How far have you read?”

“I’m a third of the way through the first story, ‘Alice and the Mad Tryst,’” Colbie said.

“Is it good?” Leslie said.

“Yeah, it’s pretty good,” she said. “I’d never thought Amelia Hearn was a writer of scary stories.”

Leslie smiled again and checked the time on her watch, then looked at Connie still talking with Randal on her phone, then looked over at the three CSIs still going about their work. She turned back to Colbie and said, “It looks like we’ve got some time to kill. Tell you what: you read the rest of that story, and I’ll go get us something to eat while we’re waiting. What flavor do you want?”

“Orange soda,” she said.

“What about snacks?” Leslie said.

“Whatever’s there,” she said, and after her mother got up and headed down the corridor looking for vending machines, Colbie flipped to the page where she had slipped a piece of cardstock on the page she had stopped reading. At first, she had to backtrack a few paragraphs to refresh herself on what was going on in the story, till her mother came back with the beverages and snacks. Colbie opened an orange soda that Leslie gave her and took a swig and helped herself to a granola bar, while Leslie drank coffee and waited. After that, Colbie eased herself back into the story again and read on without breaking the immersion like a spell weaving itself through her mind into another world with another ‘Alice’ to take her there.

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