There is a sacredness in tears. They are not a mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition and of unspeakable love.

—Washington Irving (attributed)

1

It was now 9:42 a.m.

Stepping through her mirror with Colbie in her arms, Katherine saw Roy and Randal rising from the armrests of both sofas, Roy from the sofa on which Kendra slept and Randal from the empty one adjacent to it. And before they asked anything about Colbie’s condition, she said, “She’s in a trance right now,” and she placed the girl on the sofa that she and her sisters had been sitting in minutes before.

“What happened to her?” Randal said.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Connie said that she noticed Colbie had been reading for a while, and when she asked her if she was done yet, Colbie didn’t respond. That’s when Mrs. Amame had Connie call us to go over there.”

“Where are your sisters?” Roy added.

“They’re with Mrs. Amame and Connie in the Phantom Realms,” Katherine said, summoning another blood-colored shroud and throwing it over Colbie’s body on the sofa and tucking her in. “They’re looking for Colbie as I speak,” and she then stalked out of the family room.

“Where are you going?” Roy said.

“I’m going to my room to get some things,” Katherine said as she crossed the entrance hall towards the stairs and began stomping up the steps. “Watch over the girls for me.”

Katherine cleared the top step and walked down the upper hallway and reached her bedroom beside her parents’ bedroom, where she stalked past the open door and approached her bed, crouching beside it and raising the bed skirt and reaching for something underneath and pulling out a massive grimoire. Then she took it with her and went to her roll top study desk in front of the window and pulled up the roll top cover, revealing her laptop and a series of drawers, and pulled out drawer and drawer, hoping that Celia hadn’t been rifling through her desk drawers last night in search of more things to blackmail her with.

“Damn it, where are you?” she said after pulling the last drawer and finding it empty, then heard a smartphone chiming downstairs and Randal Larking’s voice. She ignored the interruptions, focusing on where she might have put it, saying, “I know I put them here somewhere,” and she raised the false tabletop cover and checked the hidden compartment box underneath it, where she spied a pair of enchanted glasses. ”There you are!”

She snatched the item and lowered the tabletop cover and closed the roll top, lest Celia get any ideas of borrowing more of her stuff without her permission, then snatched her hand mirror from her vanity table and headed out of her room and down the hallway and descended the stairs as she heard Randal concluding her call and cursing like sailor.

When she crossed the entrance hall and entered the family room once again, carrying her grimoire and her glasses and her hand mirror, she noticed Roy trying to comfort a worried Randal and said, “What’s going on?”

“It’s about my brother,” Randal said. “I just got a call from Lt. Shaefer saying Steve got shot in the leg.”

“Oh my God!” Katherine said, raising a hand to her mouth.

“Yeah, I know,” Randal said. “He says it’s not life-threatening, but he’s unconscious.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

“What did you bring with you?” Roy said.

“A grimoire of magic circles and a mirror,” Katherine said and placed the big grimoire and the mirror on the coffee table and put on the enchanted glasses. She opened the big grimoire and flipped to the table of contents and scanned across the titles, then flipped the pages to the indicated chapter and studied the magic circle diagrams, till she spotted a circle with a swirling pattern on its seal. “I’ll make a totem to help Mrs. Amame and the others find Colbie’s location. Randal, can you open your smartphone to the diagrams that Connie sent you?”

“Sure,” Randal said, fishing his smartphone from his pocket and punching in his passcode and accessing the photos from his messages app, and gave it to her.

Katherine scrolled through the photos on the screen and stopped at the second diagram of Chess Cathedral, zeroing in on the four corners of the X’ed box depicting the cathedral crossing: Kendra was on the upper left hand corner [Diamonds]; Mara was on the upper right hand corner [Clubs]; Lima was on the lower left hand corner [Spades]; and Auna was on the lower right hand corner [Hearts], where Amelia was designated just outside the corner with an arrow pointing to it [Joker].

(Figure 2)

She then scrolled through the other photos and paused on the seventh diagram showing the Grimwald Cove neighborhood block, noting Kendra’s house on the upper left hand corner of the block [Diamonds] and Colbie’s house on the lower right hand corner of the same block with an arrow pointing to it [Joker].

(Figure 7)

“Two Jokers and two arrows pointing at the same corner,” Katherine said, thinking about the strange correlation between Celia’s account of Colbie getting stabbed by Mara in their dream dive two nights ago and the collective vision of Amelia Hearn’s death that she had shared with rest of the people in the family room this morning, then looked up at the thoughtful expression on Randal’s face and knew what he was thinking. “Randal, you’re thinking about it, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I am,” he said. “I wanted to bring it up before Connie called you and your sisters over to the Nayland Hospital, but I didn’t want to make things worse.”

“That’s okay,” Katherine said and looked at the sleeping Kendra and Colbie, both girls wrapped up in her blood-colored shrouds on both sofas, then looked at the diagrams on the smartphone and then at the grimoire lying on the coffee table open to the page of the seal diagram with the swirling pattern and decided it was worth a shot, so she waved Roy and Randal over and gave Randal back his smartphone. “Study the second diagram of the cathedral crossing and the seventh diagram of Grimwald Cove. Once you’re done, I need you to help me rearrange the furniture of this room to match the arrangement of the diagrams I showed you.”

And while they studied the diagrams on the smartphone, Katherine went to work moving the end tables and the divans and the coffee table off the floor rug and pushing them up against the cabinet console housing the TV. After that, she asked if they were done studying it, so Randal said they were and put the smartphone on the coffee table next to the grimoire. Then Roy and Randal pushed the sofa on which Kendra lay towards the upper left hand corner of the floor rug, positioning it diagonally across the corner of the rug, while Katherine pushed one of the recliners to the lower left hand corner of the floor rug and positioned it diagonally across the corner of the rug. Then Roy and Randal pushed the sofa on which Colbie lay towards the lower right hand corner of the floor rug, positioning it diagonally across the corner of the rug next to the bookshelves, while Katherine pushed the other recliner to the upper right hand corner of the floor rug and positioned it diagonally across the corner of the rug.

Then Randal squeezed himself out of the corner pocket, saying, “Okay, what next?”

Katherine then went back to the coffee table and consulted the diagrams on Randal’s smartphone, as well as the diagram of the seal on the page of the grimoire, then picked up her hand mirror and said, “We’ll replicate the positions of the diagrams. Randal, you stand beside Colbie.”

Which he did, leaning on the armrest by Colbie’s head.

“And Roy, you stand beside Kendra,” she said.

Which he also did, leaning on the armrest by Kendra’s head like he’d been doing all this time.

“Okay, good,” Katherine said and walked to the center of the floor that had been rearranged into a symbolic representation of the cathedral crossing and crouched, putting her mirror on the carpet fibers and placing her hand over its reflection. In her mind, she visualized the swirling pattern of the magic circle from the grimoire, making the mirror glow beneath her palm, and opened her eyes and saw two silvery threads swirling beneath her hand through her enchanted glasses. She looked to her right and saw one thread connecting to Colbie, and she looked to her left and saw the other thread connecting to Kendra, so she focused on the swirling pattern to solidify it in her mind and connect the threads to Mrs. Amame and Connie and Madison and Celia, forming a collective totem that would bring their paths together through the swirling pattern of her spell.

With Roy and Randal staring at her, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, Katherine commenced with her spell, saying, “As your dreams hide the truth, let my mind be your mirror; as my mind seeks the truth, may your strength make it clearer; as your dreams block the truth, let my words be your river; as my voice seeks the truth, may your voice never waver; as your dreams speak the truth, let my guidance take over; as my heart yearns for truth, may your silence be over; as your dreams know the truth, let my strength be your savior, and let my guidance take over, and let my words be you river, and let my mind be your mirror!”

At the completion of her incantation, Katherine felt her energy flowing through her arm and out through her hand into the whirling watery depths of her hand mirror, as a myriad of shapes and colors swirled through her mind, coming in and out of focus. Katherine struggled to make sense of these shapes and colors, these images of a lady in a white gown descending from a tower and finding a boat and writing her name upon the prow and getting aboard and floating on down a river towards a many-towered palace, laying herself down in exhaustion as the boat moved through the glassy river with a setting sun behind her . . .

Under tower and balcony,

By garden-wall and gallery,

A gleaming shape she floated by,

Dead-pale between the houses high,

⁠Silent into Camelot.

Out upon the wharfs they came,

Knight and burgher, lord and dame,

And round the prow they read her name,

⁠The Lady of Shalott.

Who is this? and what is here?

And in the lighted palace near

Died the sound of royal cheer;

And they crossed themselves for fear,

⁠All the knights at Camelot:

But Lancelot mused a little space;

He said, "She has a lovely face;

God in his mercy lend her grace,

⁠The Lady of Shalott."

Yet in her mind, Katherine beheld a continuation of the scene as Lancelot in full armor and the other knights of the Round Table waded into the glassy water and pulled the boat up onto the shore, and then Lancelot boarded the boat . . . just as he morphed into Nico Cairns dressed in the garb of a blue musketeer and the Lady of Shalott morphed into a sleeping Colbie Amame, and Katherine saw Nico reaching out her hand and pulling out a kodachi from Colbie’s stomach . . . just as Nico then morphed into a beautiful girl Katherine had never seen before and Colbie morphed into a sleeping Kendra Tellerman in the nude, and Katherine saw this unknown girl tying a handkerchief around Kendra’s hand . . . just as the name on the prow of the boat morphed into a different name and Kendra morphed into Auna Wenger that this unknown girl was kissing like the fabled prince kissing Sleeping Beauty out of an enchanted sleep . . . till the vision of these transformations dispersed from her mind amidst voices calling her name. And before she knew it, Katherine found herself getting hoisted to her feet between Roy and Randal holding her by her arms, her breathing labored and her temples dewy with sweat.

“Kathy?” Roy said.

“Are you okay?” Randal added.

“I don’t know,” Katherine said, regaining her feet as the two men led her to one of the recliners in the lower left hand corner of the room, where she sat down in thought. “I don’t know what that was . . .”

Roy and Randal traded glances, and Roy said, “Kathy, what are you talking about?”

“I’m not sure,” Katherine said.

“Then tell us what you saw,” Randal added.

“I don’t know what I saw,” she said again, trying to figure out what that vision was about and hoping that she had not made a mistake somewhere. “I saw a series of transformations from a woman in a boat and a guy in armor to these other girls.”

“What ‘other girls?’” Roy said.

Katherine looked at Roy, wondering if she should go into further detail, and said, “Girls like Nico and Kendra and Colbie and Auna and even this other girl I don’t recognize.”

“Can you describe her?” Randal said.

“I’ll try,” Katherine said, closing her eyes and thinking back to the vision with all of those transformations, and focused her mind on that most beautiful specimen of girlhood. “She looked younger than Auna or Colbie, and she’s cherry blonde and wore a gauzy dress and a tall crown on her head and big flowers covering her ears. My God, she’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen, ethereal even, and she was kissing . . .”

2

It was now 9:54 a.m.

Amidst churning storm clouds and booms of faraway thunder, a thunderbolt flashed on roof of the Belgrave, blinding the General Jinjur and the rest atop the Bangsian, and a shuddering boom of thunder ripped through the air. And once the glare and the ringing in their ears had subsided, General Jinjur and Col. Roosevelt looked over the balustrade down at the roof of the Belgrave. There in the northwest corner of the roof with Lewis Carroll stood the newcomers. She recognized the squad from Captain Nell’s Gillikin Battalion and John Crane and even Amelia Hearn amongst the bevy women, but not the three blue musketeers or the rest of women, all of them surrounding a girl holding a broadsword. And besides the sword-girl, Jinjur also noticed one of the older women wrapping her arms around the sword-girl and the two other girls as if she was their mother.

Then John Crane and the blue musketeers and the Gillikin squad all raised their rifles and aimed at Rancaster, backing him away towards the center of the roof with his hands raised, yet General Jinjur kept her gaze on the bevy of women. Two of the girls looked like twins, while the one with the sword seemed to be related to the older woman holding the trio back in her arms, so Jinjur assumed the twins were her stepdaughters or nieces.

“Where’s Lady Hearn?” Col. Roosevelt said.

“Right there amongst the older women,” General Jinjur said, pointing out one of the older women with long dark purple hair amongst the group on the roof of the Belgrave, “but I don’t recognize Lady Tellerman or the other women.”

But then Col. Roosevelt pointed towards the three girls in the arms of the older women and said, “I think that girl over there with the sword is Mr. Carroll’s trump card.”

“How do you know?” she said.

“I have a hunch about her,” he said, “because she’s holding the sword that Mr. Carroll gave her.”

“Then ready your men, Colonel,” Jinjur said. “But don’t fire, until you see Mr. Carroll give his signal.”

“Including Pvt. Benjamin?” he said.

“Yes, him, too,” she said. “Hop to it.”

“Will do, ma’am,” Col. Roosevelt said and stalked back towards Lt. Hamilton and his Rough Riders, ordering them to approach the balustrade with their guns ready. Then he ordered Pvt. Benjamin to get down from the water tower and join his fellows.

As Pvt. Benjamin was climbing down, General Jinjur also had Wantowin Battles take up his position behind the ranks of Roosevelt’s Rough Riders and double himself into a sizable rank of soldiers towering over the heads of the Rough Riders, all of them with their long rifles at the ready in their hands.

“Will this work?” Sgt. Rousseau said.

“Let’s hope so,” General Jinjur said. “Take up your position with the Rough Riders, Sergeant.”

“Will do, ma’am,” he said and joined the Rough Riders, readying his own bolt-action rifle in his hands.

Then the General looked back over the balustrade at the rooftop, where John Crane and the three blue musketeers and the Gillikin squad now lowered their weapons, and she saw Lewis Carroll approaching Rancaster again and talking to him. She then focused on Rancaster and saw him talking to Amelia Hearn and Lewis Carroll in turn, causing Amelia Hearn and three other women to separate themselves from the group and approach Rancaster, yelling at him.

So Rancaster backed away from the angry women towards the southeast corner of the rooftop, raising his hands up in a placating gesture.

Then Lewis Carroll, for his part, stole a glance back at General Jinjur, and that’s when she knew that their plan to corner Rancaster was about to begin. She looked back down at the commotion on the roof, where Amelia and the other women were still berating Rancaster near the southeast corner. Then she looked back to the northwest corner of the roof past the line of the Gillikin Squad and the four men guarding the five young women: the sword-girl, the two girls that looked like twins, and two other girls, all of whom seemed to be hatching a plan of their own. Whatever their plans, looking from Lewis Carroll standing aside to the four older women surrounding Rancaster and then back to the five younger women behind the shooters, Jinjur prayed that her own cockamamie plan with the Rough Riders and Lewis Carroll would work, come what may.

3

It was now 9:55 a.m.

With General Jinjur and the Rough Riders and Wantowin Battles covering the south side of the Belgrave, and Squad Leader Sheila’s Munchkin squad covering its west side, and Squad Leader Dante’s Quadling squad covering its east side, and the flying monkeys covering its north side high overhead, Rancaster still had his hands up as he backed up against the southeast corner of the roof, saying, “Now, now, girls. I know you’ve all got skin against me, and I completely understand why you’re—”

“Shut it, you monster!” Amelia said, stalking up to the man and shoving him back towards the corner. “First you stalked my family, then you had me killed—“

“Technically, your daughter did it,” he said.

“Oh, fuck you!” Amelia said and grabbed the man’s white suit jacket. “You not only screwed with me and my family, you’ve also screwed with other families!”

So he grasped both of her hands and said, “If you hadn’t interfered to begin with, then none of this would have happened, and neither Mr. Foster nor you nor anybody else would have had to die,” and Amelia’s blood seal with the syllable ‘Li’ on it appeared behind Rancaster's back.

Amelia pulled her hand away.

So Ramona got up in Rancaster’s face, saying, “Was that why you killed me and my husband?”

“Come, come, darling,” Rancaster said. “You and your friends and your husband were meddling in my affairs when all of you should have just minded your own business.” So an enraged Ramona attempted to slap his face, yet Rancaster caught her wrist and said, “Violence is unbecoming of women, you know,” and Ramona’s chrysanthemum seal with another syllable of ‘Li’ appeared on Rancaster’s back.

“Fuck you!” she said, pulling away.

Then Bridget stalked up to the man and said, “I died giving birth to my daughter, and you fucked her up!”

“I did no such thing, darling,” he said. “Your disgusting beast of a husband did that to her. I only took your daughter in when both of you were dead.” So Bridget tried to slap him, yet Rancaster caught her arm and added, “I taught her self-defense, too,” and Bridget’s seal of dog roses with the syllable ‘Um’ on it appeared behind Rancaster’s back.

Bridget pulled herself away and glared at him, saying, “All you did was teach her to be a monster like you!”

Then Amelia and Ramona and Bridget activated their seals at once, Amelia’s blood rose seal flashing dark red, Ramona’s chrysanthemum seal flashing yellow, and Bridget’s dog rose seal flashing white. All three seals flashed over Rancaster’s jacket, inscribing three magic circles of blood roses and yellow chrysanthemums and white dog roses around Rancaster feet, restricting his movements.

“You bitches!” he said, struggling against three layers of magic. “What did you do to me?”

Yet Amelia placed her own psychic hold over Rancaster’s mouth and said, “We’re just returning the favor after what you’ve done to us and what you tried to do to our daughters. We’ve learned from our mistakes, unlike you,” and she turned towards Lucy and smiled. “Have at him, dear.”

Now it was Lucy’s turn to have her say, to turn the tables on the guy who killed herself and her husband and one of her daughters and left her remaining daughter orphaned. So on top of using words, for words alone weren’t enough, she kicked his left kneecap, bringing the man down onto one knee and saying, “That’s for Mara and Nico!”

Now Rancaster was grimacing and groaning.

Yet Lucy hadn’t had enough yet, so she kicked his right kneecap, bringing him down on both knees and saying, “And that’s for my husband!”

Now he was swearing at twice the amount of pain.

Yet Lucy had to get one more in, one more to regain her own self-respect after believing in this bastard over her husband, so she kicked him between the legs and bowled him over and said, “And that’s for me, you lying fuck!”

Lucy then circled around the prostrated man, now groaning in agony, and looked down at the three syllables (Li-Li-Um) flashing blood red and yellow and white from Amelia and Ramona and Bridget’s seals before looking back up at Amelia, who nodded her head. So Lucy placed her hand over the glowing seals, and something flashed through her mind’s eye of a name that Rancaster had stolen from Alice and replaced with ‘Bambina,’ yet she couldn’t believe what she saw. Lilith’s first born daughter, the first born ancestor of a race cursed by God, the first born scion of all vampires, looked like an ordinary school girl with bobbed dark hair and teal eyes, and Lilith herself looked like the youngest member of their motherly group at just 22 years old at the time of her death.

“Bridget,” Lucy said, singling her out next to Amelia and Ramona, “Auna’s true name is Lilium, and yours is Lilith. You’re both reincarnations of Lilith and Lilium.”

Lucy then rejoined the group of mothers, Amelia and Ramona consoling a crying Bridget, and hugged the young mother and said, “Your daughter’s alive, and I know where she is!”

“Thank you,” Bridget said.

But once Bridget finished crying, all four mothers faced the man in the white suit still squirming beneath three seals holding him still on the roof, his back to the sky. They all joined hands and said as one, “Oh, Lilium, Lilium, Lilium, Lilium! Wake up and return to your mother! Wake up and return to your mother! Wake up and return to your mother! Wake up and return to your mother! Oh, Lilium, Lilium, Lilium, Lilium! Wake up and . . .”

4

It was now 9:58 a.m.

Auna heard voices as she was screaming for a bespectacled Gibson girl named Amelia Hearn (a.k.a., Linda Kouri) to stop making love to Alice inside a bedroom that would later belong to Lima Hearn in 1994, till the dream shifted before her blinking eyes. Now Auna was ‘Alice’ again, and she was with Amelia on a different bed in a bedroom loft overlooking the dining area above Amelia’s old shop in Richet Square back in 1913, and she was waiting for Amelia to make her first move on her, waiting with bated breath and a nod of her head.

So Amelia lowered herself and planted a kiss on her lips, touching and caressing her and tickling her, urging girlish giggles out of ‘Alice’ as if they were playing a naughty game of Touch Me There / If You Dare. And in kind, the designated ’Alice’ did the same, taking part in a mutual contract between two sinners in time and space, two souls separated by half a century of human pain, two women mixing cups in a covenant of love. She allowed Amelia to indulge herself in her kisses and caresses and rubs on her body, till she felt her cold breaths becoming hot steam and the winter chill in her body becoming summer heat.

Thus, with newfound strength and ardor, ‘Alice’ returned Amelia’s kisses with affectionate hickeys along her neck and between the parting of her breasts and down her stomach and lower still, wanting more and more of Amelia to her greedy self, wanting Amelia to be hers for tonight, and wanting another taste of her lips. So she raised herself on her forearms and planted more on her mouth and fondled her breasts, then hooked Amelia’s legs past her waist and leaned over and smothered Amelia with more kisses, so she wouldn’t say no or scream, pinning Amelia’s knees over the swell of her breasts and grabbing and holding down her wrists, keeping Amelia from moving—

Till she stopped in the middle of her foreplay.

The way Amelia stared at her at that moment, the way she knitted her brows as if there was something wrong, the way she was huffing and puffing with trembling lips, made ‘Alice’ get off of her and say, “Did I hurt you? Are you okay?”

Amelia pushed herself up as ‘Alice’ kneeled in front of her, so Amelia sat up and said, “‘Alice,’ the way you’re doing it, it’s almost like . . .”

But even when she left it unsaid, ‘Alice’ knew and couldn’t bear to face her, squeezing her eyes shut the way she did on that godless night, willing away the shame as if she was still willing away the sharp burst of pain between her legs, repressing the urge to break down again.

“I’m sorry,” ‘Alice’ said, yet the tears trailed her cheeks, so she got up to go, but Amelia grabbed her hand.

“I promise I’m not angry,” Amelia said and moved to the bedside, swinging her legs over and tapping a place for ‘Alice’ to sit beside her.

‘Alice’ did as she was bidden and wiped her tears with her forearm, still looking away, still repressing the phantom sensations of that Godless night back into the darkness, back into the void where monsters capered and leered and lurked just beyond the edge of sight, just a nightmare away from resurfacing. And before she knew it, before she could repress it, ‘Alice’ found herself squeezing her thighs together and fisting her trembling hands over her knees, repressing the urge to touch herself in order to make pleasure out of pain.

Amelia then cupped her hand between her own and said, “Did it hurt?”

‘Alice’ nodded.

“A lot?” Amelia said.

‘Alice’ nodded with more tears trailing down her cheeks, so she wiped her tears and said, “It’s my fault.”

So Amelia wrapped her arms about her shoulders with tears of her own, saying, “Please, don’t blame yourself. It’s not your fault. None of this is your fault.”

“But it is my fault!” ‘Alice’ said. “I killed her.”

“Who, dear?” Amelia said.

“My mom,” she said. “I killed my mom!”

“Don’t think that way,” Amelia said. “You did no such thing.”

“But I did,” ‘Alice’ said, wiping her eyes again. “Dad said so, and I did it to him, too. First my mom, and then my dad: I’m a killer. I wish I was . . .”

But before ‘Alice’ could say her wish, before she even knew what was going on, the dream shifted yet again to the present day in 2018, in which ‘Alice’ was Auna again.

And right beside her was another woman rubbing circles behind her back, who said, “Auna, it’s not your fault.”

“How would you know?” she said.

“I know,” this woman said, “because it’s my fault for not being there for you.”

Auna looked at the woman before her and stared at her gray eyes full of tears and black hair reaching to the small of her back, and something within her soul lit up like a candle flickering in the wind. Something about this woman filled the empty cup of her soul with tears, for hot tears now trailed down her cheeks, and Auna said, “Mom?”

Bridget Barton Wenger hugged Auna in her arms, sniffling and crying, and said, “You’ve grown so much. I only wish I’d have been there to see it all. I’m so sorry!”

5

It was now 9:59 a.m.

While the four women kept chanting and backing away from the man towards the center of the roof to give the younger women room to enact their plan, Nico peered over the shoulders of the line of shooters and saw a grinning Lewis Carroll walking up towards Rancaster and crouching beside him. Even though she was on the opposite corner from him, Nico could still hear Carroll’s voice for some reason.

“How does it feel to be on the receiving end?” Carroll said, then laughed and slapped the man’s back as if they were drinking in a saloon. “You can’t move, can you? Well, too bad, because you’re in for a lot of pain.”

Lewis Carroll stood up and looked at Squad Leader Joyce and John Crane and then at General Jinjur overlooking the scene from the Bangsian, then raised his hand as a signal for Squad Leader Joyce and John Crane and General Jinjur and the Rough Riders and Wantowin Battles to ready their guns, who all took aim on the condemned man. Then he stepped away with his hand still raised and joined the four women at the northwest corner of the roof, still chanting behind the shooters.

Lewis Carroll let his hand fall like a swing of a hammer onto a nailhead, and a thunderous volley of gun smoke rained a hail of silver bullets down on Rancaster, obscuring his screams.

Just as the smoke cleared, Nico turned back to Shiromi and Akami and Cooley and Blaze, putting their own plan into motion. Cooley crouched, placing her hand over the roof, and summoned two giant mirrors, one right beside her behind the line of shooters and the four women, still chanting, and another one about a story above Rancaster’s exposed back.

Through the mirror before them, Nico and the other girls saw the three-layer seal still glowing on the tattered and blood-soaked jacket of Rancaster’s back, still keeping him in place as he was groaning and writhing in agony, a spreading halo of blood spreading out on the pockmarked roof.

So Cooley said, “Blaze and I will go first and soften him up.” Then to Akami and Shiromi, she added, “You two will go second and pin him down.” And then to Nico, she added, “Nico, you’ll go last and deal the final blow.”

“One, two, three,” Blaze said. “Got it?”

Nico and the Red and White Queens all nodded, Akami and Shiromi manifesting knives in both of their hands and Nico gripping the handle of her Vorpal Sword with both hands. Nico thought back on those hellish moments on Rancaster’s stage on that godless night while her parents were begging for the lives of their daughters amidst the cheers and jeers of a sick audience, thinking back on her last moments alive as Mara was begging her to stay strong, till her world went black with a bang, and she found herself floating above the scene of her sister crying and her parents screaming and Nico herself unable to do anything except watch.

Now the roles were reversed as Cooley and Blaze jumped through the mirror and came out through the other one above Rancaster, both girls landing solid hooks on the man’s back and laying him out with a percussive shock shuddering through the Belgrave to its foundations, dislodging more brickwork and glass shards into the street below and caving in the southeast corner of the roof into a shallow crater of about four feet deep.

Then Akami and Shiromi, the Red and White Queens, jumped through the mirror and came out through the other one above the cratered corner of the roof, Akami slamming her knives through Rancaster’s forearms and Shiromi slamming hers through his calves, and pinned him there like a voodoo doll. And Rancaster’s scream ripped through the skies, churning with clouds, and echoed through this part of the Phantom Realms.

Then it was Nico’s turn, jumping through the mirror with her sword above her head and coming out through the other one above Rancaster’s body, ready to cleave his head from his shoulders in one fell swoop—

When Mara’s face flashed across her eyes . . .

And Nico crossed blades with an echoing clang that deflected the arc of her sword from Rancaster’s head, creating another shockwave through the hotel, dislodging more brickwork and spreading the crater to almost half of the roof and knocking everyone but Nico herself off their feet. In fact, the impact of Nico’s blow had broken off a remaining part of the balustrade, sending it into the street below, and left a deep gash in the roof right through the concrete and the reinforcing rebar into the bent steel joists and warped metal decking.

Yet in the aftermath of clanging blades and creaking steel and crashing debris, just as everyone on the roof was regaining their feet, Nico stared at her sister in a sky-blue Sunday dress between herself and Rancaster, stared at her own flesh and blood pointing her kodachi at her face. Mara was there before her without gashes or bruises, and all Nico wanted was to hug her and cry, yet something in her sister’s demeanor was off.

Which wasn’t lost on Lucy Cairns, yelling Nico’s name (“Nico, get away from her!”) as she sprinted from the group towards the shallow crater on the roof.

And Nico was saying, “Mara, why are you—”

Yet before she completed her question, before her mother reached her, just as the shooters on both rooftops aimed their guns at a new threat, and just as Akami and Shiromi and Cooley and Blaze all rushed at Mara at once, the atmosphere changed around them. Psychic pressure waves flooded the roof in torrents from the epicenter that was Mara, threatening to send Nico and the Queens and Cooley and Blaze crashing into the others on the northwest corner of the roof.

First it was Lucy, and then it was Shiromi and Akami, and then it was Cooley and Blaze. All five women lost their footing and got slammed against the group, Lucy crashing into Lewis Carroll, Shiromi and Akami crashing into the Gillikin squad, and Cooley and Blaze crashing into the three blue musketeers. At the same time, the collision of bodies broke up the line of soldiers and musketeers and dissipated the mirror above Rancaster and the one in the southwest corner of the roof, and Mara’s psychic onslaught kept pushing them up against a remaining section of the balustrade in a growing crowd crush.

6

It was now 10:01 a.m.

As Mara’s psychic pressure waves were buffeting against everyone on the roof of the Bangsian, as well, forcing them to hug the balustrade in crouching and kneeling positions for cover, Col. Roosevelt and Lt. Hamilton and even Sgt. Rousseau were all urging General Jinjur to give the Rough Riders an order to fire their guns at will on the new threat before them.

Yet General Jinjur was shaking her head, keeping her hand over her shako to keep it from flying off, and yelled herself hoarse above the buffeting tumult, saying, “No can do, men! I’m not risking friendly fire on them!”

“Then what do we do?” Roosevelt said.

“Pray that the girl over there can hold out, till I ready the countermeasures!” Jinjur said, then peered up at the big boat (all twenty-something feet of it) floating in the sky due northwest above the commotion on the Belgrave and the flying monkeys circling well above the buffeting pressures of Mara’s psychic waves. So she manifested her hand mirror with its glowing reflection in her hand and whistled to the edge of her vocal cords, trying to get the magic connection to work, and when Dorothy’s face appeared, she said, “Your Highness, they need your help on the roof!”

“Copy that, General,” Dorothy said, and she hollered an order for all able-bodied flying monkeys and goblins with their carpets and jars into position in the boat.

And above Jinjur’s head, the General saw the flying monkeys heading towards Dorothy, where they assembled with the goblins by the gunwale right beside her outside the cabin.

“We’re ready!” Dorothy said.

“Good,” General Jinjur said. “Just keep an eye on them, and be careful of turbulence!”

“Will do, General!” she said. “Over and out!”

Then the image of Princess Dorothy cut out from the reflection, leaving General Jinjur to look down on those struggling in the crowd crush against the balustrade, looking down on Lady Hearn and Lewis Carroll and John Crane and the Gillikin squad and the blue musketeers and the rest of the women all struggling together on the Belgrave’s roof and praying for no further casualties on her watch.

7

It was now 10:01 a.m.

As her friends got blown off, Nico slammed the point of her Vorpal Sword into the roof, keeping her from flying off, yet she struggled to keep her hands on the handle as the pressure waves mounted to the force of a psychic hurricane. Even Rancaster, his four limbs still pinned to the rooftop under the Queens’ knives, was gritting his teeth and squinting his eyes against the strain of Mara’s psychokinesis. Yet between the friction of a raging typhoon and a stubborn object, a force field emerged around Nico with a comet’s tail behind her, for Nico was holding her own with all she had.

Through the onslaught, Nico felt her sister’s emotions buffeting her mind and raging against the memory of that godless night on Rancaster’s stage. Mara had witnessed the deaths of her sister and both of her parents that night in quick succession (Bang! . . . Bang! . . . Bang! . . .) and ran through the streets of the old Rancaster district, only for Rancaster to catch up to her in Richet Square and force his spell on her, stiff-arming Mara into the ground and hollowing her out into an empty shell that Nico had possessed on that night, fighting on for her sister’s sake through mounting fatigue and gunshots and blood loss . . .

So Nico fought for Mara, fighting to keep herself from slipping and squinting into the psychic blast and yelling, “Maraaaaa! Maraaaaa, you have to stooop!”

But Mara said nothing in the psychic whirl of her turmoil, her face expressionless and her eyes dull, as she took up a samurai’s stance similar to what Rancaster had used against Nico in Richet Square. And like a samurai, Mara had her kodachi at her waist in a one-handed grip.

“Mara, please, stoooop!” Nico screamed as memories flashed across her eyes of her first encounter with Colbie and her friends at their mansion later that night after her tussle with a sword-swinging Rancaster and a gun-toting Auna. Yet try as she might back then and now, her own words couldn’t reach her sister in time, for just as Mara had stabbed Colbie through her stomach, so too did Mara slash through Nico’s psychic barrier—

Which sent Lucy Cairns and Amelia and the rest of the group flying from the Belgrave’s roof—

Which then sent the flying monkeys and carpet-flying goblins swooping after them, catching them in midair.

Yet back on the roof, as a line of blood and ectoplasm spread across her chest and forearms, Nico collapsed onto her side with her Vorpal Sword still clutched in her hand as she heard Lucy and Shiromi screaming her name above the voices of the others over the roof of the Belgrave.

Only then did Mara snap out of it and look up at their distraught mother as the monkeys and the goblins flew Lucy and the rest of the group towards the Bangsian. And only then did Mara crouch over her fallen sister and cradle her in her arms, looking down into her eyes with tears of her own falling onto Nico’s pale cheeks, crying as if she was crying away her humanity. And only then, while Nico looked up through blurry eyes at her own flesh and blood coming back to a semblance of her old self, did she allow her astral body to dissolve away into nothingness in her sister’s arms.

8

It was now 10:04 a.m.

The moment Lucy touched down on the roof of the Bangsian, she rushed through the ranks of Rough Riders towards the balustrade, joining Amelia and Ramona and Bridget and the rest of the group with General Jinjur and Col. Roosevelt, all of them looking down at the aftermath on the Belgrave. At the sight of a bloody and motionless Nico disappearing from Mara’s arms, Lucy fell to her knees by the balustrade, reliving the godless moments on Rancaster’s stage in the aftermath of their forced participation in a game of Russian roulette, shedding more tears over the same horror replaying itself like a family curse.

Shiromi and Akami came up to her first and wrapped their arms around her, crying, followed by Amelia and Ramona and Bridget, all of them comforting a fellow mother in her darkest hour of grief. Even General Jinjur and Wantowin Battles and Sgt. Rousseau and Col. Roosevelt and Lt. Hamilton and the rest of the Rough Riders and John Crane and messieurs Dolan and Curvan and Shaefer and Squad Leader Joyce and her Gillikin squad all took off their hats and placed them over their hearts for Lucy as if she was the mother of a fallen soldier returning home in a casket, draped over with a flag.

But in the silence of Lucy’s plight came a slow clapping through the air, accompanied by a booming thunderclap, and all heads on the roof of the Bangsian turned towards the Belgrave, and even the forlorn Lucy got up with the Queens and looked over the balustrade. For there on the opposing roof stood Rancaster, his white suit riddled with holes and stained with blood, clapping in a one-man standing ovation. And accompanying him was the acclamation of other clappers and cheers from an invisible audience that had been watching the drama unfold, as if the sky above the city had become an enclosed arena.

So the Gillikin squad and the Rough Riders all aimed their rifles at the man, yet General Jinjur and Col. Roosevelt ordered them to stand down.

Instead, General Jinjur got out her smartphone and her hand mirror again and contacted Lt. Shaefer at the third drop zone and her four captains in their own drop zones throughout the city, informing them of the new development atop the Belgrave. Then she took a deep breath, resigning herself to the inevitable, and added, “Lt. Shaefer, since Inspector Larking is wounded and is no longer capable of commanding the op, I’m taking command as case officer. Any objections?”

“No, ma’am,” Lt. Shaefer said.

“Good,” she said. “Now mobilize in eleven hundred hours.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Lt. Shaefer said and hung up.

She then repeated to her captains the same order of mobilizing their forces in 1100 hours.

“Yes, ma’am!” her four captains all said, and three of their images dissipated from the reflection of her hand mirror, save for that of Captain Imogen of the Quadling Battalion.

Captain Imogen informed General Jinjur of Squad Leader Dante sending a fire team to pursue the retreating red musketeer Alice-doppelgängers from the premises of the Belgrave to the abandoned fort atop the hill in the second drop zone.

“Whatever they do there,” General Jinjur said, “don’t let them get near the fort. There’s an enchanted barrier around it that relocated me and my Phantom Office company to another location. Relay this intel to Squad Leader Dante and keep me informed if anything happens there. Got it?”

“Will do, ma’am!” Captain Imogen said, and her image dissipated from General Jinjur’s hand mirror.

Meanwhile, as the acclamation faded away, Rancaster stood over a deadpan Mara on the roof and said something to her, and the girl stood up as if on autopilot.

“Maraaaa!” Lucy yelled out to her daughter.

Then Rancaster manifested a megaphone in his hand and said through it, “She can’t hear, you, darling. She’s off in her own little world at the moment.”

“YOU FUCKING BASTARD!” Lucy yelled.

The man just laughed and said, “I’ve been called that before and worse,” and more thunderclaps boomed in the sky—

Closer this time.

So Lucy yelled more obscenities at the man, threatening him to hand Mara back to her, or by God, she’d find him and haunt him for the rest of eternity, among other threats.

Yet the man stared at Amelia Hearn out of everyone else on the Bangsian and said through his megaphone, “You’re right for once, Amelia Hearn. Indeed, you’ve all learned from your mistakes and managed to do me a good one, but your daughters haven’t learned anything yet. Hence, Mara Cairns is mine, and I have no need for your progeny anymore.”

“What do you mean?” Amelia yelled, yet the man started laughing again. “What the fuck do you mean? TELL ME!”

Yet the man just kept laughing as the churning clouds darkened overhead, and booms of approaching thunder rumbled through the skies like volleys from a nearby battlefield. And amidst the thunderclaps and evil laughter, the forms of Rancaster and Mara dissipated into wisps of fog emanating below his feet, obscuring them from the view of everyone but God and the Virgin Mary and even Nico Cairns.

9

It was now 10:06 a.m.

Moments passed, till Nico heard voices on the Bangsian’s roof below her and looked down at the commotion. Her mother was screaming at Rancaster, and General Jinjur was talking to Lt. Shaefer and her captains through her smartphone and her hand mirror, but when she saw Rancaster with Mara on the roof.

Maraaaaa! Nico yelled, yet she had become but a disembodied voice. He’s behind you! Yet when the man tapped her sister’s shoulder, Mara just stood up with blank eyes on her expressionless face, and that’s when Nico knew with icicles of dread digging through her soul that her sister had been reduced to a walking shell of herself. So Nico kept on yelling, Maraaaaa! Maraaaaa, don’t go with him!

Yet when she couldn’t reach her sister, she looked over at the commotion on the Bangsian’s roof, where she now heard Rancaster laughing as Amelia Hearn was yelling at him. So Nico yelled at Amelia Hearn, saying, I’m over here! I’m over—

“Stop screaming, child!” a voice said.

But they’re down there! Nico said, looking for the anomalous voice. If I just call out to them, then maybe they can hear me, and maybe they can—

“They can’t hear you,” the voice said.

Then Nico looked back down at the roof of the Belgrave again, where she saw Rancaster and Mara disappearing into wisps of fog, so she yelled, Maraaaaa!

“Child, please,” the voice said, “you’re giving me a headache, and you’ll tear out your voice if you keep doing that.”

Nico looked around, saying, Where are you?

“Right here,” the voice said.

Nico looked over her shoulder at the touch of a gentle hand over hers and saw a radiant figure emblazoned in light, but only for a moment as the scene below her changed.

Now Nico found herself inside a cavernous place, standing beside the glooming shimmer of an underground pond lighting the place, standing in the presence of a woman wearing a red tunic and a blue veil over her head and holding a handkerchief in one hand and Nico’s hand in the other. With that handkerchief, this woman wiped Nico’s cheeks dry of tears, and with her other hand, she pulled her into an embrace that reminded Nico of her own mother, but Lucy never wore tunics or veils or—

Then it hit her, and when Nico was released from her embrace, she gaped at the glowing woman, then kneeled and made the sign of the cross and said, “Holy mother of God!”

Then she covered her mouth.

The Virgin Mary laughed and said, “That’s one way of saying it,” and she gave Nico the handkerchief. “Take this with you.”

She took it and said, “What’s it for?”

“It’s enchanted,” the Virgin Mary said. “Princess Ozma had given it to ‘Alice,’ and ‘Alice’ had given it to me, and I wanted to give it to Colbie, because there are two girls missing: one named Kendra, and one named Mara.”

“My sister?” she said.

The Virgin Mary nodded and said, “Yes, but Colbie isn’t awake right now, and I’m loath to act on someone else’s part to wake her up, so can you do that for me?”

“Wait,” she said, blushing, “where is she?”

“Right behind you,” the Virgin Mary said, pointing behind Nico, so she turned and saw the very girl she had saved on that fateful night lying by the glassy sheen of the shimmering pond. “I managed to find her, but since I’m disinclined to kiss her (I’m not into other women, you see), I was looking for someone else to do it for me, and I happened to see you on the roof of that building. That girl you were trying to reach, she’s your sister, isn’t she?”

“Yeah, she is,” Nico said, thinking of Rancaster on the roof. “Damn that bastard!” Then she covered her mouth again and added, “Sorry about that!”

The Virgin Mary smiled again and said, “It’s okay, child, for God works in mysterious ways.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your setback on that roof,” the Virgin Mary said, “has now become that girl’s salvation,” and she pointed at Colbie again as the Virgin Mary was starting to fade away. After you wake her up, dear, make sure to give that handkerchief to her and help her find your sister.

“Wait,” Nico said. “What about Kendra?”

Leave that girl to your friends, the Virgin Mary said, for they’re on their way . . .

And her words and her voice and her spirit drifted away, leaving poor Nico alone with Colbie. Nico mulled over what the Virgin Mary had said before shifting her thoughts onto Lucy and the rest for a few moments. Then she settled down to task at hand, remembering Shiromi’s words (‘Put some tongue in it, girl!’) after she had failed to kiss Auna Wenger awake the first time under the tree beside the yellow-brick road, and thought of Mara’s crush on this girl she had seen in Cooley’s mirror. She bit her lower lip, hoping Mara won’t get too jealous if she ever found out that Nico had kissed her crush.

Turning from her qualms, Nico kneeled over Colbie and placed the handkerchief in her hand, then bent down and kissed her, putting her tongue where her mouth was.

Then she waited for her to wake up. And waited. And waited. And waited some more.

But just as with Auna, Colbie remained still, so Nico went with Plan B and thought back to the vault underneath Cooley’s dream mansion in the aftermath of Celia’s fight with Auna that night, thinking of her brief intimacy with Mara before Cooley and Blaze walked in on them through Cooley’s mirror. When Nico was having her way with Mara’s breasts and lips, she’d had a vision of her sister having her own way with Colbie in her dorm room and planting hungry kisses on her cheeks and lips, only to look into her eyes and see Alice’s face. And in that moment of recognition, Mara had manifested her kodachi and stabbed her bare stomach, bursting the image of Alice into bloodstained petals of daisies and roses and purple carnations . . .

So Nico focused on that kodachi, imagining it stuck in Colbie’s stomach, then wrapped her hand around the handle and pulled it out as if she was pulling out Excalibur from a stone. Yet in her hand was not Mara’s kodachi or even her own Vorpal Sword, but a long double-edged dagger dissipating from her hand.

“M-Mara, is that you?” Colbie said.

Nico looked down at Colbie sitting up and looking up at her, so she shook her head. “I’m Nico, her sister.”

“Oh,” Colbie said.

Nico deadpanned. “Were you expecting Mara?”

Colbie nodded but remained silent, averting her gaze from Nico.

“What is it?” Nico said. “Is there something wrong?”

But then Colbie came up to her and hugged her, saying, “Thank you for saving me. I mean it, thank you.”

“No problem,” Nico said, and when Colbie let her go, she smiled and added, “Mara’s lucky to have you.”

“Gee, thanks,” she said.

Nico then grabbed her hand and hoisted her up to her feet, then said, “How did you get here?”

“I don’t know,” Colbie said. “Last time I checked, I was in the hospital with my mom, reading ‘Alice and the Mad Tryst,’ and then I kind of . . . blacked out or something, I don’t know,” and then she looked around. “Where are we, anyway?”

Nico looked around the underground space, thinking back to her childhood with her sister Mara. She and Mara used to explore these endless tunnels in their more innocent childhood dreams, in which Nico was always the brave one leading Mara by one hand and carrying a lamp in the other. In those dreams, both sisters would eventually reach a lighted underground city filled with friendly ghosts who would show them all the haunts from the days of the Old West before the Baronetcy War ravaged this sacred place.

“We’re underground,” Nico said.

“But where?” Colbie said.

Nico remembered the Virgin Mary’s observation about the handkerchief, so she pointed it out in Colbie’s hand and said, “Check in your hand.”

Only then did Colbie notice and say, “What is this?”

“You’re not gonna believe this,” Nico said, “but the Virgin Mary—and I mean the Virgin Mary—led me to you and gave me that handkerchief to give to you.”

“But why?” she said.

“All these questions,” Nico said, putting her hands on her hips. “You’re like a little kid, you know that? Just look at that handkerchief. Do you see something?”

So Colbie opened it up and said, “No way!” She then positioned its face within the glow of the shimmering pool.

“What is it?” Nico said.

“It’s a map.”

Nico came up behind Colbie, looked at it from her perspective, and saw tunnels glowing on the cloth, then noticed two twinkling stars that she assumed were Colbie and herself, and then a silvery line leading off the edge of the handkerchief from their current location. Then she pointed out a little silvery thread running from the corner of the handkerchief and said, “If we follow that thread, we might find our way out of here.”

“But where to?” Colbie said.

“I don’t know,” Nico said, smiling up at Colbie, “but I wanna find out. Are you coming with me or not?”

Colbie just stared at her.

Nico took Colbie’s arm and leaned into her, saying, “I’ll make it worth your while, I promise.”

“Ew,” she said.

“I know you have the hots for my sister,” Nico said, “so don’t be too shy, silly girl.”

Colbie just gaped at her and said, “That night, how much did you watch before you came in?”

“When I saved you that time,” Nico said, “I also looked through your memories.”

“You perv,” Colbie said.

“Are you coming or not?” Nico said.

Colbie then smiled and said, “Sure, why not?”

So both girls trekked through the dark tunnels, Colbie holding the handkerchief map and Nico leading the way, following its silvery thread to God-knows-where. As such, to pass the time and settle her nerves, Nico asked about the story Colbie had read, and Colbie retold it in her own words, prompted by Nico's questions. It started off with a girl named Alice before it detoured to another girl named ‘Alice,’ following her whacked-out adventure into a nighttime tryst through Edwardian thoroughfares and then a daytime trip and a scary encounter in Wonderland and then a dicey visit to Oz and then a weird detour to Chess Cathedral . . .

10

It was now 10:07 a.m.

While Squad Leader Dante’s two-person fire team ducked through the tall grass of Flanders Field surrounding the abandoned fort atop the hill, staying hidden as they tailed after the red musketeer doppelgängers towards the fort, they spotted a nearby grove of trees. So Pvt. Marsha and Pvt. Amy footed it through the tall grass to the shade of the grove, clear of the foot of the hill and whatever spooky barrier enchantment that Squad Leader Dante had received intel for from Captain Imogen, who had received her intel from General Jinjur at the roof the Bangsian when Captain Imogen had informed Jinjur of Squad Leader Dante’s fire team performing a reconnaissance mission at the fort.

Armed with their General’s intel, Pvt. Marsha kept a lookout, taking out her binoculars and surveilling the goings-on at the fort, and Pvt. Amy manifested her hand mirror and informed Squad Leader Dante of their current position.

“Keep a lookout,” Squad Leader Dante said. “If anything weird happens, keep me informed.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Pvt. Amy said, then to her teammate: “Anything?”

“Nothing unusual so far,” Pvt. Marsha said. “Wait a minute, there’s something.”

“What is it?” Pvt. Amy said.

“What the heck is going on?” Pvt. Marsha said.

Pvt. Amy asked for the binoculars, so her teammate handed them over and pointed out the bulwark beside the entrance to the fort, so Amy took a look through them at whatever was going on. There at the foot of the old bulwark near the entrance was a gigantic centipede crawling around the outer perimeter, yet that wasn’t the strangest part by a longshot.

Pvt. Amy lowered the binoculars and looked on with her naked eyes, then looked through the binoculars again and saw that the red musketeer Alice-doppelgängers took no notice of its presence there by their bulwarks. What’s more, through the binoculars, she thought she spied a silvery thread attached to its head between its beady eyes and pointy antennae—

When its antennae stood up on end, and the centipede turned its head in her direction.

Pvt. Amy lowered the binoculars again and traded a knowing look with her teammate, saying, “Should we call it in?”

“I don’t know,” Pvt. Marsha said.

Pvt. Amy looked through the binoculars again, seeing the centipede circling along the bulwark, and said, “I’m not sure yet, but I think it’s checking out the fort,” and she handed the binoculars back to her teammate.

Pvt. Marsha took it and looked through them for a few moments, then said, “We’ll wait and see what happens first.”

“Then inform our Squad Leader?”

“Yep.”

11

It was now 10:10 a.m.

After over twenty minutes of oblivion, in which Princess Ozma lingered in light sleep, she opened her eyes and found herself on a bed with heart-shaped pillows around her head. But when she sat up, she noticed an older girl sleeping beside her in the nude, one that seemed familiar as she brushed her hand across the girl’s bangs shielding her closed eyes. Then she took in her surroundings and saw recessed shelves stocked with dildos and vibrators and rubber toys and several dirty magazines and books and DVDs, so she did a double take on the girl next to her.

Thinking back to her private suite at her Royal Palace, she remembered talking with Dorothy about this girl in her magic picture, something about her being in two places at once. Lighting upon her name (Kendra, was it?), Ozma put her hand on the girl’s shoulder, intending to wake her up, yet her hand passed through her astral form. Since Kendra was in limbo in this room (Or maybe I’m the one in limbo?), Ozma surmised that this girl lying beside her was Kendra’s spirit, while Kendra’s body lay on the sofa with a man and three sisters watching over her in the real world.

Then she got off the bed and noticed something clutched in her hand: it was General Jinjur’s handkerchief. And that’s when she remembered the sequence of events from her chafing under Alice’s rude questions and saving her friends Betsy and Trot to her tussle with Rancaster and Alice on the roof of the Belgrave, till the flash of Rancaster’s blade before her eyes filled her forearms with goosebumps and raised the hairs on the back of her neck. She put her hand over her neck, feeling for a nick or a bruise there, yet she felt no pain there.

Ozma then turned her attention back to the handkerchief, looking at the item in her hand and the girl on the bed, and lighted on an idea. Since she couldn’t physically touch Kendra with herself, maybe she could use another object in her possession to bridge the limbo between herself and Kendra.

So she wrapped the handkerchief around Kendra’s hand and tied it over her palm, making sure it wouldn’t slip off. Then she lifted Kendra’s hand with the handkerchief and bent her arm at the elbow, so that she could place her palm over her heart, as if Kendra was pledging allegiance to the U.S. flag.

“Let’s see,” Ozma said.

Then she approached one side of the room of recessed shelves, ignoring various phallic objects on the other side, and inspected the titles on the spines of several adult magazines and smut books, whose titles that made her blush. Then she approached the front of the room with a large LCD flat-screen television inlaid into the front wall and inspected another shelf below it full of hentai DVDs, perusing some of the titles: HatsuInu, Mezzo Forte, Princess Lover, The Dark Chapel, Oni Chichi, etc.

The last title caught her eye.

So she tried to grab it, yet her hand passed through.

“You’ve done enough, child,” a voice said.

Ozma turned, saying, “Who’s there?”

A radiant lady wearing a red tunic and a blue veil over her head stood there, saying, “I’m the Virgin Mary.”

Ozma then remembered Glinda’s talks of her travels through the world before coming to reside in the land of Oz and said, “Then are you Maria Kannon of the Japanese folk?”

The Lady nodded, saying, “I am.”

“Then,” Ozma said, pointing towards the DVD title that caught her eye, “do you know what ‘Oni Chichi’ means?”

“It’s Japanese,” the Virgin Mary said, “for ‘demon father,’” and the lady of the blue veil stared at Ozma with steely eyes. “Good Heavens, you’re not going to watch it, are you?”

“No!” Ozma said. “I just wanted to know what it meant.”

“What for?” the Virgin Mary said.

“‘Alice’ told me what happened to her,” Ozma said, then looked over at Kendra on the bed. “Did the same thing happen to Kendra?”

“No, child,” the Virgin Mary said.

Ozma paused, then said, “How do you know?”

“Kendra and ‘Alice’ were both orphaned at a young age,” the Virgin Mary said, “and their lives both share a similar pattern, yet they’re different girls with different experiences. Unlike Alice’s fathers, both of Kendra’s fathers loved her, even when their love was misguided. Do you know what I mean?”

“We sometimes find ourselves astray,” Ozma said, thinking back on her shameful past as a boy with queer thoughts and idle hands, “because we love the wrong things.”

“Or love them too much,” the Virgin Mary said. “Come with me, child,” and she extended her hand towards Ozma. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

“Is it Alice?” Ozma said.

The Virgin Mary shook her head. “Her current name is Auna,” she said, “and you need to wake her up for me.”

“Wait,” Ozma said, “can’t you wake her up yourself?”

“Divinities like me cannot interfere too much in the affairs of mortals,” the Virgin Mary said. “I’m just a messenger of God, and I can only show you the way. For the rest, you’ll have to do it yourself. Now come.”

So Ozma took the Virgin Mary’s hand, then looked back at Kendra and said, “What about her?”

“Don’t worry about her, child,” the Virgin Mary said. “Others will come for her.”

“But who?” Ozma said.

“Her friends,” the Virgin Mary said.

So Ozma nodded and walked towards the door, hand in hand with the Virgin Mary, believing in her words, and yet when Mary turned the knob to open it, the knob refused to budge. Then Ozma tried the knob, yanking at it, trying to get the tumblers inside it to turn the latch from the slip plate in the door jamb, yet the knob refused to cooperate.

“Why won’t it open?” Ozma said.

The Virgin Mary paused for a moment, looking at the knob in question, and said, “There’s a keyhole here.”

“What does that mean?” Ozma said.

“It means this door is locked,” the Virgin Mary said. “We’ll just have to wait for someone to open it.”

“Someone or anyone?” Ozma said.

The Virgin Mary smiled, saying, “Have faith, child.”

12

It was now 10:12 a.m.

After the big boat docked port side along the balustrade of the Bangsian’s roof, Princess Dorothy had three goblins lower the casualties (a handful of injured goblins and a still-unconscious Inspector Stephen Larking and the knocked-out pair of Princess Ozma and Alice) onto the roof on their flying carpets, while General Jinjur and Wantowin Battles helped Princesses Betsy and Trot alight from the gunwale onto the roof. Then Princess Dorothy told Gobsmacker and the other goblins and the flying monkeys to keep watch over the streets for anything amiss and to let her know, ASAP, to which they all said, “Will do, your Highness!”

Then Dorothy alighted from the gunwale and headed towards Princess Ozma, accompanied by Betsy and Trot, while the troop of monkeys and the goblin-led boat crew headed off on their new assignment. Then she ordered Wantowin Battles to take the goblins and Stephen and Ozma and Alice, as well as Betsy and Trot, back to the hotel room downstairs, to which the tall man said, “Will do, your Highness!”

Wantowin Battles split into about a dozen copies of himself and carried all the casualties into his arms and took them through the penthouse door and down the staff stairs. With that, General Jinjur asked Col. Roosevelt and his Rough Riders to act as lookouts on the roof, so Col. Roosevelt had his men buddy up in squads of eight and take one-hour shifts per squad, while the others were to head downstairs to rest. Then she asked Squad Leader Joyce and her Gillikin squad to head downstairs as well, so the squad leader nodded, and they all followed the other Rough Riders into the penthouse and down the staff stairs.

“Let’s go down, your Highness,” General Jinjur said. “You must be tired from all the hullabaloo.”

“I will,” Dorothy said, “but I need to speak with them first,” and she pointed to the newcomers crowding around Lucy Cairns, where Lewis Carroll was consoling and hugging the still-crying mother. “What can you tell me about them?”

“Not much,” she said, “except for her,” and she pointed out one of the four mothers in their group, the one with long dark purple hair and wearing a jacket over her clothes. “Right there is Lady Amelia Hearn, the Blood Rose Witch, and I think one of the others is Ramona Tellerman, the Chrysanthemum Witch. I saw Lady Hearn once while my Captains and I were practicing our marching drills under Captain Bell at Lady Glinda’s Palace.”

“Okay, wait by the door,” Dorothy said. “We’ll come downstairs after I’m finished talking with them.”

General Jinjur nodded and was about to turn to the door—

When Dorothy added, “Wait.”

“What is it, your Highness?” General Jinjur said.

Dorothy was thinking of Jellia Jamb and the rest of the staff and the guests at the Royal Palace of Oz, all of them probably searching for the whereabouts of the four missing Princesses of Oz or even contacting the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow to aid in their search, so she added, “Contact Jellia Jamb and say that Princesses Ozma and Betsy and Trot and I are all in the middle of playing hide and seek. I don’t want there to be a panic at the Royal Palace, if we can help it.”

“Will do, your Highness,” the General said, manifesting her hand mirror in her hand.

“Also,” Princess Ozma said, “contact Lady Glinda and tell her about the current situation and have her contact everyone she knows. From what we’ve seen today, we’re gonna need all the help we can get.”

“Will do,” the General said and whistled, till the image of Jellia Jamb appeared in her hand mirror, and she went to work assuaging whatever mayhem resulted from the inexplicable disappearance of the four Princesses of Oz. Then she contacted Lady Glinda and explained the whole situation and asked for more reinforcements, whatever she could muster through her connections in the land of Oz and to the outside world.

As General Jinjur was talking, Dorothy (still in her late adolescent form in her uniform with her sheathed sword hanging from her baldric) approached the group by the balustrade, and Akami and Shiromi met her in the between.

“How is she?” Dorothy said.

Akami said, “She’s still taking it hard—”

“—but at least she’s calmed down,” Shiromi added.

“I see,” Dorothy said, and the trio approached the group of Amelia and Bridget and Ramona and Cooley and Blaze and messieurs Dolan and Curvan and Shaefer and the Phantom Office operative John Crane, all of them surrounding Lucy Cairns who was nodding at something Lewis Carroll had said. To this hodgepodge group and especially to the four mothers and Lady Hearn in particular, Dorothy thought back to Ozma’s private suite this morning and the things Ozma had shown her through her magic picture, then said, “Excuse me, Lady Hearn.”

The newcomers all faced Dorothy.

And Amelia Hearn said, “What is it, dear?”

“I have news for all of you,” Dorothy said. “There’s this girl named ‘Kendra’ and this girl named ‘Alice,’ but I don’t think ‘Alice’ is her name right now.”

Then two of the black-haired mothers approached her, and one of them said, “I’m Ramona Tellerman.”

“You’re the Chrysanthemum Witch?” she said.

“Yeah, I am,” Ramona said, “and I’m Kendra’s mother. Do you know where Kendra is?”

“I do, ma’am,” Dorothy said.

Then the other said, “I’m Bridget Barton Wenger, and I’m Auna’s mother.”

“Auna?” Dorothy said. “Is that her name now?”

“Yeah,” Bridget said. “She’s ‘Alice’ to that bastard, but she’s still Auna to me.”

“What can you tell us?” Ramona said.

She looked at Akami and Shiromi, who both nodded their heads, so Dorothy said, “Akami and Shiromi and your daughter ‘Alice’ all appeared in Ozma’s throne room.”

“Then is Auna still there?” Bridget said.

Dorothy shook her head, saying, “Princess Ozma sent ‘Alice’ to another place in a cathedral.”

“Chess Cathedral,” Amelia Hearn added. “I met ‘Alice’ there, and I renamed her Auna to break Rancaster’s spell over her, so I don’t think she’s there anymore.”

“I see,” Dorothy said. “The last time Ozma and I saw her, she was in two places at once: inside a mirror in Chess Cathedral and in this place with that man.”

Bridget cupped her hands over her gaping mouth and said, “Then does that mean that girl who was with Rancaster—”

“—is your daughter, yes,” Dorothy said.

Then Bridget looked over her shoulder at Lucy Cairns and said, “Then when you said you knew where she was—”

“She’s with us, yes,” Lucy said.

So Bridget came over to her and glomped Lucy in a sisterly hug, saying, “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Which put a smile on Lucy’s face, and she hugged her back and said, “You’re welcome.”

“What about Kendra?” Ramona said.

“After Ozma sent Akami and Shiromi back to your group, Ozma and I kept track of your whereabouts through her magic picture this morning,” Dorothy said. “Besides ‘Alice,’ we also checked the whereabouts of your daughter ‘Kendra,’ and we found her in two places at once, just like ‘Alice.’ In one place, she’s on a sofa with a man and three girls who seemed like sisters.”

“That’s my family mansion,” Amelia said, “the Hearn house. Kathy and Maddy and Celia are probably looking after her.”

“The other place she was in,” Dorothy said, remembering all the phallic objects on the shelves and choosing a more delicate way to say it, “was a weird place.”

“What kind of place?” Ramona said.

“It’s a bedroom,” Dorthy said, hoping she wasn’t blushing in front of Kendra’s mother, “with weird things in it.”

“Ah, I see,” Amelia said. “She’s in Kathy’s naughty room.”

“What ’naughty room’ are you talking about?” Ramona said, looking from a blushing Dorothy to Amelia, then back to Dorothy. “What happened to my Kendra?”

“I don’t know, Lady Tellerman,” Dorothy said. “I just found her there . . .”

“And?” Ramona said.

Dorothy remained silent, looking away from Ramona’s eyes that were boring holes through her.

“For God’s sake, tell me already!” Ramona said. “Was Kendra doing anything weird? Like playing with herself or—”

“No, nothing like that!” Dorothy said. “When Ozma and I saw her, we saw her sleeping . . . in the nude.”

Only then did Ramona deflate somewhat and say, “Oh, was that it? Geez, you had me worried for a second, you know that?” Then she fixed Dorothy with a flash of her dark eyes, making the girl flinch and look away again, while she added, “Are you into girls? Were you ogling at Kendra when you saw her naked?”

“Nothing like that, ma’am,” Dorothy said.

“Are you sure?” Ramona said.

“I wasn’t leering,” Dorothy said.

So Amelia and Bridget and Lucy came to Dorothy’s rescue, all of them putting their hands atop Ramona’s shoulders and Lucy saying, “Let’s all go inside, okay?”

Only then did Ramona relent, and a thankful Dorothy said to Lucy Cairns, “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Lucy said. “And don’t take it the wrong way. It’s just we mothers can be overprotective.”

“I see,” Dorothy said.

With that, they all headed towards the penthouse, where General Jinjur had been waiting after she had finished talking with Glinda, and followed her down the staff stairs amidst a hubbub of footfalls echoing along the walls and chatting voices amongst the mothers and the younger women and the men. Dorothy kept her distance from the newcomers, especially from Ramona, walking beside General Jinjur, who then glanced back over her shoulder at Ramona chatting it up with Lucy and the other mothers amongst the bevy of women in the group.

Then she turned back to Dorothy and said, “Are you okay? You looked like you were getting interrogated back there.”

“It’s not as bad as that,” Dorothy said, “but mothers are a bit scary.”

General Jinjur smiled, saying, “There are many ferocious things in the forest, like lions and tigers and bears, but no creature would dare go between a mother and her children.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Dorothy said.

13

It was now 10:17 a.m.

Yet the chatting of the group was short-lived the moment Bridget and the rest stepped foot in the side hall, where on either side were double doors leading into the big suites of the Bangsian’s top floor. Then Lucy Cairns told Bridget Barton Wenger that Auna was inside one of the top-floor suites, and Bridget asked which one, yet Lucy just said that she’ll know which one when they arrive. As such, they passed two Rough Riders standing guard at the double doors of one suite, the one that held the council of war amongst General Jinjur and Wantowin Battles and Lewis Carroll and Col. Roosevelt and Lt. Hamilton and Sgt. Rousseau and Inspector Stephen Larking and Princess Dorothy an hour ago. And after them were Wantowin Battles and a private from Squad Leader Joyce’s Gillikin squad standing guard at the double doors of the next suite, where Bridget Barton Wenger felt the pulses of Auna’s heartbeats behind those doors.

“Are Ozma and Alice inside?” Dorothy said.

“Yes, your Highness,” Wantowin Battles said and opened both doors into another spacious suite with another large desk before another curtained window. “They’re in the adjoining bedroom, still knocked out I’m afraid.”

“What about Betsy and Trot?” she said.

“They’re by Princess Ozma’s bedside,” he said, “but I advised them to be quiet.”

Dorothy nodded and led the group into the room and said, “This way, Mrs. Wenger,” and she took Bridget’s hand.

Bridget followed without a word.

They passed the double-door entrance into the bedchamber, where two four-poster beds lay beside each other with a cabinet drawer and a vanity mirror in between them. And on both beds, each tucked in beneath a thick comforter, lay Princess Ozma and Alice, Ozma on the right and Auna on the left, and by Ozma’s bedside were Betsy and Trot waving Dorothy over. And so, while Wantowin Battles and Lewis Carroll and John Crane and messieurs Dolan and Curvan and Shaefer stayed behind in the other room, the women of the group followed the two inside, General Jinjur and Cooley and Blaze joining Dorothy and Betsy and Trot at Ozma’s bedside and Amelia and Ramona and Lucy and the Red and White Queens joining Bridget at Auna’s bedside, still in the blue Sunday dress with a red heart over the bodice that Alice had come out of the Belgrave wearing almost an hour ago, a lifetime ago.

Bridget kneeled beside her daughter’s bedside, reaching into the comforter and taking up Auna’s hand within her own, while Dorothy did the same, sitting on Ozma’s bedside and fishing out Ozma’s hand from the comforter and holding it above her lap.

Moments passed in absolute silence.

Then Amelia said, “Bridget, take out your daughter’s key and place it in her hand.”

“Will that wake her up?” Bridget said.

“Try it and see what happens,” Amelia said.

So Bridget took the chain from her neck and took out the key depending on it from beneath her shirt, then placed the key in Auna’s hand and wrapped her fingers over it, then waited. And waited. And waited. Yet after two minutes had passed, she said, “She’s not waking up.”

“That’s odd,” Amelia said. “If the key’s in her hand, then it should wake her up, unless . . .”

“Unless what?” Bridget said.

Amelia looked over at the other bed, and Bridget followed her gaze towards Ozma, which caught Dorothy’s attention. Then Amelia stood up and said, “Hand me the key.”

So Bridget did, placing it in her hand and saying, “What do you have in mind?”

“It’s just a hunch, but I need to try something,” Amelia said and stalked over to Ozma’s bed and said to Dorothy, “Your Highness, may I place this key in her hand?”

“Wait a minute,” Dorothy said. “Are you trying to wake up both of them at once?”

“It’s worth a shot,” Amelia said, and then to Bridget and Dorothy, she added, “Since Princess Ozma and Auna are both knocked out, we might as well give it a try.”

“Okay,” Dorothy said.

So Amelia placed Auna’s key in Ozma’s hand, wrapping her fingers over it, and said, “Let’s hope this works.”

14

It was now 10:22 a.m.

After several minutes of waiting, Ozma experienced Auna’s face flashing through her mind and felt something metallic beneath her clasp of the Virgin Mary’s hand. So Ozma let go of her and found a key in the middle of her palm.

“Open the door,” the Virgin Mary said.

So Ozma put the key into the keyhole and turned it, turning the tumblers inside the knob. Then she turned the knob and opened and pushed in, and the door swung open on silent hinges into the darkness. Ozma then took the Virgin Mary’s hand, and together they passed the threshold and stepped into the foyer of a dim house.

After entering, the door behind them disappeared, and Ozma beheld a set of stairs in the living room before her. Save for the lamplight through the window of the entrance door casting a soft glow on the foot of the stairs, everything else was in gloom. But when she looked down between her feet, Ozma found a silver cord glistening in the darkness and leading up the stairs. So hand in hand with her guide, Ozma followed the silvery thread towards the upper hallway, where a motion-sensing night light turned on upon her arrival, casting its light on the floorboards and walls and fluorescing the silvery thread leading down the hallway towards a set of double doors left ajar at the end.

Then Ozma remembered what the Red and White Queens had told her in her throne room and what Alice had said to her atop the Belgrave, and she couldn’t help but gulp. Something atrocious had happened to a ten-year-old girl in the still of the night, something that gave Ozma her first experience of goosebumps on her forearms, something that made Ozma’s lips quiver at whatever took place behind those doors.

She looked back at the Virgin Mary, saying, ”Tell me: was this the place where . . . it happened?”

The Virgin Mary nodded and said, “Go on.”

“But I’m scared,” Ozma said, squeezing her guide’s hand.

“Fear not, child,” the Virgin Mary said. “I’ll be with you for as long as you need me.”

Ozma then gulped down her qualms and followed the thread down the hall, squeezing on the Virgin Mary’s hand one the way as the doorway between those double doors loomed larger and larger. She almost had to force herself to walk on, trudging step by step as if through the sludge of dreams holding her back, as if she was about to walk in on Auna doing something naughty with herself or with her father, that she would see something scary when she crossed the threshold . . .

So she crossed the threshold with her eyes closed, hand in hand with her guide, breathing hard when she came to a stop, feeling her heart drumming against her ribs, praying it wasn’t anything like what she was thinking, praying it wasn’t something that would make her cry.

“It’s okay,” the Virgin Mary said.

“Are you sure?” she said.

“Open your eyes, dear,” her guide said. “It’s okay.”

Ozma opened her eyes and saw Auna sprawled on the bed, dressed in a bloodstained Shad-Row uniform, sound asleep. Ozma let go of her guide’s hand and ran towards Auna’s bedside and shook the girl by her shoulders, saying, “Auna, wake up! Wake up!”

Yet the girl stayed asleep.

“Check your hand,” the Virgin Mary said.

Ozma looked at the key in her hand and then at the peaceful expression on Auna’s face, lingering on the subtle parting of her lips, the lips of the first girl she had ever kissed, breathing in and breathing out.

Then she looked back at the Virgin Mary, who had a smile on her face and said, “You know what to do.”

“What exactly?” Ozma said.

“Follow your instincts,” the Virgin Mary said, “and you’ll know for yourself.”

She looked back on Auna’s face and gulped again at the languorous parting of her lips breathing in and out in a slow rhythm that sent Ozma’s heart rate climbing as it dawned on her what to do, for in her mind flashed the moment that made Dorothy shower her lips with greedy kisses last night, the moment she kissed Auna (a.k.a., ‘Alice’) awake in her throne room. Ozma gulped down her qualms, apologizing to Dorothy in her mind for what she was about to do, and kissed Auna.

Then she waited. And waited. And waited some more, yet the girl stirred not a muscle from her sleep like Sleeping Beauty under an enchantment.

Ozma looked back on the Virgin Mary again and shrugged her shoulders, saying, “What now?”

The Virgin Mary face-palmed herself, then spread her hand open and pointed to it with her other hand.

So Ozma got the message and eyed the key in her hand and knew what to do next: she took Auna’s hand and uncurled her fingers, then placed the key in her palm and wrapped her fingers over it, then bent down and said, “Wake up, Auna,” and she kissed her the way she had with Dorothy last night, kissing her long and deep as if Ozma was a Prince and Auna was her Sleeping Beauty.

15

It was now 10:26 a.m.

One moment Auna was crying and hugging her mother for the first time in her life, and the next she was falling and falling and falling through the rabbit hole of dreams, down and down and down through a flurry of voices calling her Alice and ‘Alice’ and Auna at once, all of them from different voices she thought she knew but couldn’t tell for sure whether she knew or not, knowing nothing of what was happening around her besides a continuous weightlessness churning up her stomach, feeling nothing else except the continuous whoosh of air flying past her face and fluttering her clothes, fisting her hands and squinting her eyes and gritting her teeth in anticipation of an impact approaching her like the earth getting ready to swat at a pesky skydiver moving at terminal velocity, and all she could do was let out a scream she couldn’t even hear, because it wasn’t a scream but a massive intake of breath as if she was coming up from a deep dive in an ocean of dreams, only to get washed ashore amongst a flock of seagulls all calling her Auna, only for those seagulls to blur out of focus and then sharpen in clarity, sharpening into several faces of women looking at her and repeating her name, women she couldn’t recognize except for maybe three of them registering through the neuronal synaptic receptors of a foggy brain, and she found herself struggling to move a heavy body that had lain dormant for longer than was healthy and needed some time to recuperate from the madness of it all before responding with anything intelligible to say to these women, only to say one word that hushed them all into silence . . .

“Mom?” Auna said.

That one word made Bridget Barton Wenger break down in tears before her, so Auna tried raising her hand to touch her face, yet she couldn’t do it. Then her mother took her hand and kissed her palm, then cupped it against her cheek and cried some more, and Auna felt the wetness of her mother’s tears, felt the soft warmth of her mother’s cheek, and soon afterwards tears trailed down Auna’s own cheeks, because her mother was there, and that was all that mattered. Her mother then bent down and kissed Auna’s forehead and wiped away her tears, and then Shiromi and Akami came up to her bedside and glomped her—

Till Trot said, “Ozma?”

“She’s waking up!” Betsy added.

“Oh, thank goodness!” Dorothy said.

Auna and Bridget and the others looked over at the other bed, where Princess Ozma was stirring. Dorothy and Betsy and Trot were hugging Ozma, and General Jinjur and Amelia Hearn let out long sighs, and Cooley and Blaze both started fangirling over Ozma and saying that she looked totally awesome on the roof of the Belgrave earlier, so much so that even General Jinjur agreed.

“You were amazing, your Highness,” the General said. “I never thought our Princess could fight like that.”

Ozma propped herself up on her elbows, looking at them, and said, “I only try what I can.”

“Wait a minute,” Amelia said, looking at Ozma’s empty hand over the comforter. “Did you lose the key?”

“The key?” Ozma sat up and stared at Amelia for a moment, then looked down at her empty hand and said, “In my dream, I unlocked a door with a key that appeared in my hand,” and she looked up at Amelia. “Were you the one who gave it?”

Amelia nodded but said, “Do you know where it went?”

Ozma then looked over at Auna and said, “Auna, do you have it with you? I gave it to you earlier.”

Auna pushed herself up into a sitting position and checked her hands, one of which was curled over something small and metallic, so she opened it up and saw a key. She looked over at Ozma and showed her the object, saying, “This one?”

“That’s the key!” Ozma said.

“Why did you give me this?” Auna said.

“Because you wouldn’t wake up without it,” she said.

Then faint words (‘Wake up, Auna . . .’) fluttered across Auna’s mind, so she put her fingers to her lips at the sensation of something soft and warm imprinted there. She looked back up at a blushing Princess Ozma—

“Why are you blushing?” Dorothy said.

—and knew what was on her mind, so she said, “Your Highness, did you kiss me to wake me up?”

Auna put her hands to her mouth, but it was too late. Dorothy was looking at Ozma and then at Auna and then back at Ozma, and she said, “Are you cheating on me?”

“No!” Ozma said. “It was just to wake her up!”

“But that’s the second time you’ve kissed her!” Dorothy said.

“Somebody’s getting jealous,” Shiromi said.

“Shiromi!” Akami said.

“What?” Shiromi said. “I was just—”

“Shiromi, don’t make it worse,” Lucy Cairns said.

“Especially after Auna’s just woken up,” Bridget added.

“Okay, okay, I get it,” she said.

Then Cooley and Blaze traded glances, and Auna couldn’t help but think of them as anything else but sisters, because they both put their hands on Dorothy’s shoulders, pulling her back from Ozma’s bedside, and glared at the uniformed teenager with their arms akimbo, hands on their waists.

“Isn’t she too young,” Cooley said, “for you to have those kinds of feelings for her?”

“What are you talking about?” Dorothy said.

“She’s talking about the age gap between you and Ozma,” Blaze added. “It’s a little creepy, you lolicon!”

“What age gap?” Dorothy said.

“And what’s a ‘lolicon?’” Ozma said.

Both Cooley and Blaze gaped at them as if the pair had lost their marbles or something.

“You’re kidding, right?” Blaze said.

“No, we’re not kidding,” Dorothy said.

“Okay,” Cooley said, “how old are you two?”

Dorothy and Ozma traded glances with Betsy and Trot before they all looked back at them, and Auna got the feeling that these four were far closer in age than either Cooley or Blaze realized. Indeed, with her bodily eyes, Auna saw a teenager (Dorothy) and three young girls (Ozma and Betsy and Trot), but with her mind’s eye, she saw four young girls in all.

Then General Jinjur came in and whispered something into Dorothy’s ear, to which Dorothy nodded.

So Dorothy pulled out a handkerchief from her right sleeve and spread it like a small curtain before herself. 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 young girl no older than Ozma wearing a dainty knee-length dress and a pair of socks and princess shoes with a skimmer hat atop her head.

And except for Ozma and Betsy and Trot and General Jinjur, everyone else in the room gaped at the transformation.

Then Dorothy curtseyed before a pale-faced Cooley and Blaze and said, “This is what I normally look like, you see, but even when Ozma and I both look like this—”

“—we’re still over a century old,” Ozma said, “so there’s no need to worry.”

“The same goes for me,” Betsy said.

“And me, too,” Trot added.

“With that said,” Ozma added, “what’s a ‘lolicon?’”

“Forget what I said,” Blaze said.

“Why?” Ozma said.

“You don’t need to know,” Cooley added.

Moments passed, so to break the ice, Shiromi said, “It means you’re sexually attracted to young girls.”

Which brought on a series of reactions upon the White Queen, which included Bridget Barton Wenger and Lucy Cairns doubling Shiromi over in a two-person headlock and telling her to mind her words for once, and Cooley and Blaze and Amelia Hearn and Ramona Tellerman and Akami all glaring at her and boring holes through her wanton head, and Akami apologizing to Princesses Ozma and Dorothy for her white counterpart’s behavior.

“I was just answering her question!” Shiromi said through the two-person headlock.

“Not all questions need answering,” Akami said, “especially answers as disgusting as that!”

Then Ozma stood up from her bedside and bowed towards the group, saying, “I’m sorry for asking that question.”

Then Cooley elbowed Blaze’s ribs, so Blaze said, “No, you Highness. I’m sorry for raising it up,” and then she said to Dorothy, “And I sorry for calling you a lolicon,” and then she elbowed Cooley in the ribs, too.

“Sorry for jumping to conclusions earlier,” Cooley said to Dorothy. “I was ignorant.”

Dorothy laughed and said, “Apologies accepted.”

When Bridget and Lucy let go of their headlocks, Shiromi put her hand to the back of her neck and said, “Geez, you’re all tightwads, you know that?”

Yet before Shiromi ended up in another headlock and received another tongue-lashing and more glares from her companions, Ozma strode over to the group of newcomers and said, “I have something to tell you about Kendra’s whereabouts.”

So Ramona approached her, saying, “Dorothy’s already told us where my daughter is. What else do you have?”

“I met Kendra directly,” Ozma said, “but she was asleep at the time, so I wrapped General Jinjur’s handkerchief over her hand before I left. As long as she has that handkerchief with her, I can keep track of her. And no,” she added just as Ramona was fixing her with a stern glare, “I didn’t kiss your daughter to wake her up like I did with Auna.”

“Oh, okay,” Ramona said, deflating somewhat.

Then Ozma paused as if she was thinking of her words, then said, “Auna, dear, when I kissed you, I had a vision of you being with Kendra in a flowerbed full of giant daisy buds. Do you remember anything like that?”

And Auna did, remembering those giant daisy buds fluttering open and revealing several naked copies of herself that separated her from Kendra. The last thing she remembered was how she leaped with an outstretched hand across the crowd and grasped at Kendra’s hand before losing her hold and calling out Kendra’s name amidst the mayhem.

“Yeah, I do,” Auna said.

“Then will you lead us to her?” Ozma said.

Auna’s face lit up with a smile for the first time in a long while. Kendra was the first real friend she ever made outside of imaginary ones like Akami and Shiromi, and now she found herself with newfound friends surrounding her bedside, so she nodded her head and said, “Oh, hell yeah!”

[End of Volume 4]

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