She hadn’t meant to forget Michaela. It’d only been for a few hours. Nonetheless, even though it’d been a few days ago, Anna felt bad. And she felt bad that she didn’t feel worse, that she thought it was all right she wasn’t constantly pining over her friend from the other side of the fog. The friend who’d said she’d like it if Anna…

“It’s because I know I’ll see her again,” Anna told herself, fighting down a blush.

She sat on a bench under the shade of a tree in a park a few streets down from Clayfield Street. She had a notebook open on her lap with a few lines of scribbled poetry, but she wasn’t looking at it. Instead, her eyes were fixed far beyond the mountains of the Northern Range about which whips of cloud churned in a high wind only barely audible where Anna sat. In one hand, she fiddled with the greenish-blue, coin-shaped stone she’d found in the fog a few weeks ago.

“But also because… because not even I can be sad all the time.” The hole in her chest had not manifested in the past few days since Frank’s birthday. “It comes and it goes I suppose.”

Anna wrote that down.

“But I wish I could predict when.”

On the far side of the park was a playground where kids cavorted, their happy summertime squeals reaching across the intervening, tree-spotted field. Otherwise Anna was alone, so she didn’t worry about talking to herself.

“It’s like the fog magic. It comes and goes as it pleases.”

Anna scribbled some of that in her notebook, the arrhythmic scritching a pleasant undercurrent to the sounds of children playing and the distant drone of wind on peaks. The cool, smooth surface of the stone in her other hand unexpectedly reassuring.

“But fog is weather, and weather follow rules, patterns. If I could only see a… a map of…

A cool gust from behind interrupted her thoughts and sent her hair to scattering about her face. Anna hadn’t had a haircut since coming to Glenwood and now, several weeks on, it had grown enough to get in her eyes. It wasn’t long enough yet to hold back in a tie. She was thinking about letting it grow out, about not caring if she was made fun of for the color. Maybe she’d ask Michaela what she thought. Michaela’s vivid auburn curls were amazingly gorgeous, especially when the light struck them just so.

Anna blushed again.

A curl of fog bumped against the nearest tree.

Anna blinked at it.

Another brief gust of wind touched her back, carrying with it the dusty smell of fog off the river. She sneezed and looked over her shoulder to find fog climbing toward her. It was barely a haze above ankle level, but below that it was a thick grey mat. Anna’s heart picked up to a trot. She packed her notebook into her shoulderbag, put the stone next to the notebook, and pulled out the Truename Spyglass. She’d taken to carrying it everywhere and randomly looking at Glenwood through it. Thus far, she’d only seen what was expected, regular folk, regular shops, regular landscape.

Now she looked through it at the fog and beyond. She saw tiny points of light dancing within, miniature spirit lights.

“Vivianna?”

Anna lowered the spyglass and turned. Michaela strode toward her from the far side of the park, swirling fog lifting off every footstep. Anna picked up her shoulderbag, hurried to the other girl and hugged her impulsively. Michaela stiffened, so Anna released her and took a step back.

“I’ve been worried about you,” Anna said. “Are you all right? Was Yaga horrible to you?”

Michaela grinned. “Turns out I was never gone at all. Looks like there’s an advantage to having adventure in a dream world. What about you? Were your aunt and uncle terribly worried?”

Anna nodded. “When I walked up the hill, it was morning, and they said I was out all night. They called my mother. So, that was awkward. But they weren’t mean about it or anything.”

“We should see if see if we can extend more of our adventures on this side of the fog,” Michaela said.

Anna smiled. “I really was worried about you. I thought about you every day. Sometimes… Sometimes too much.”

“What do you mean?” Michaela’s tone was light.

“I’ve told you about that feeling. Like a hole in my chest.”

“Oh, Vivianna, I don’t want you to feel that way just because of me.”

Anna laughed. “I don’t know if I can help it.”

Michaela grinned. “Well, we’re together now, so we should enjoy it while we can. Now. Have you eaten? I got mouthy with Yaga this afternoon and she sent me to bed without supper.

“Seriously? That’s horrible.”

Michaela shrugged. “Not if I can cheat now. Let’s go down to the main street and see what’s open.”

Michaela put her arm through Anna’s and they walked through the haze like that.

“I tried to do some research,” Anna said. “And I realized we made a silly mistake.”

Michaela nodded. “You mean it’s difficult to search the entire internet for a single girl named Vivianna Lawrence?”

“Precisely. And it’s even harder when all internet access in the valley is spotty at best. Apparently a cable was cut somewhere down valley.”

“Your internet’s down too? How convenient,” Michaela said.

“What do you mean?”

“Neither of us has access to the internet at the same time? It’s almost like something wants us to be unable to find each other. If the fog is magic bringing us together, maybe there’s magic keeping us apart.”

Anna shrugged. “I suppose so. This magic all seems very…”

“Hazy?” Michaela asked with a playful grin.

Anna laughed. “I didn’t know you had jokes.”

“I’m hilarious. It’s one of my many lovable qualities.”

Anna blushed.

Michaela cleared her throat. “I mean…”

After several awkward moments, Anna said, “Well, on the bright side, if you know what the internet is, you can’t be a ghost girl from sixty years ago.” She reached into her shoulderbag and withdrew the notebook in which she’d written her information. She tore out the page, folded it neatly, and handed it to Michaela. “With all that, you should be able to find me. And when we sit for food, you should give me the same.”

“Excellent plan. You’re quite clever, Vivianna.”

Anna blushed. “There’s something else.” She quickly outlined what Bertie had told her about Catherine and Aileen Clayfield. Anna shrugged at the end of the story. “I’m not sure it helps…” She shrugged again.

“It’s interesting though,” Michaela said. “It makes it sound like someone took the real-life stories of your Glenwood and wove them into a magical storybook place.”

They turned the corner onto Clayfield Street to find it largely empty. The bright colors of the night of the festival were gone, replaced by the muted grey of fog. Everything looked washed out. The only other person on the street was a hunched man with a broom, sweeping out the sidewalk in front of his store. There was no smell of brewing coffee or baking bread. The air smelled stale.

“This is not what I was expecting,” Michaela said.

“Maybe mornings are quiet in this version of Glenwood?” Anna suggested.

But Michaela nudged her and nodded at the side of the building on their left. The window had been pasted over with posters of a man’s face. It was a printed ink drawing in stark red and blue. He was a thick-jowled man with a bushy handle-bar moustache and heavy eyebrows. The picture glowering at everyone who might pass. Below the face was a proclamation in bold, block letters:

Vote for Security. Vote for Bridgeford.

“That’s the Minister of War,” Anna said. “That’s who Captain Tahoe said hired him to kidnap us.”

Anna noticed a newspaper, abandoned on the sidewalk. She picked up and read the headline:

Lady Sabina Impeached in Midnight Trial!

Jailed for Gross Incompetence

Emergency election in one week.

“Oy there, ladies.”

Anna jumped and spun about, heart hammering. Michaela squeaked, clutching at Anna’s arm.

The man was tall, with a cleft chin and a long scar under his left eye. He wore a crisp white uniform with a high collar and gold markings on his shoulder. Behind him stood a trio of men less shaven, less kempt, all leering grins.

“Let’s see your papers then,” the man said.

“What papers?” Anna asked.

“Your identification, miss.” He took a step toward them, putting a hand on the truncheon at his belt. “Unless you’re a pair of scallywags? Illegal foreigners, perhaps? Or just a couple rebellious types?”

“No,” said Michaela, though her voice shook. “Nothing like that. We just didn’t realize we needed papers to go out to breakfast.”

One of the less-kempt men snickered.

The girls backed up another step, and another, and the man in front grew a wide grin.

“Well, that’s just fine, ladies. I’m sure we can come to some sort of arrangement. Otherwise I’ll have to take you back to the station for processing.”

Anna didn’t like the sound of that. It was the way he said “processing”, with an oily emphasis that implied eyebrow-waggling and a smirk.

“Or,” said Anna, “We could just go home and get our papers. Now that we know we’re supposed to have them.”

The guard sucked at lips and ran his thumb in circles over the butt of the truncheon at his belt. “Sure,” he said. “We can go back to your place. My men and I would like that.”

Anna choked back bile and she and Anna took several steps back from the men who followed aggressively.

“That’s not what I meant,” Anna said.

“It’s all right, sweetheart. You don’t have to pretend. It’s just us here.”

A crack echoed off the buildings down the street behind the guardsmen. The man drew his truncheon and spun around, looking for the source of the disturbance. It came again, a sound like a gunshot, and then another, and then several in quick succession.

“The resistance,” he hissed. “It has to be. Come on, you idiots.” He hurried down the street, his three followers scurrying behind.

Anna watched them go, dumbfounded by their good luck before Michaela grabbed her wrist and pulled her down a narrow alleyway damp with collected rivulets. They hurried down the space between buildings, turning left, and then right, and then left again, uncertain where they were going, just away.

“Hey, psst, over here.”

Anna looked around for the whispered voice, but didn’t see anybody.

“Did you hear that?” Michaela asked.

“Up here,” the voice came again.

Anna cast her gaze up the side of the buildings to find a boy with dark skin and a bright smile waving down at them. “That was pretty slick right?” he said. “The trick with the firecrackers?”

“That was you,” said Anna. “You drew the guards away.”

“Yup. I take it you two are looking for Lady Yulanna’s demonstration?”

Anna and Michaela looked at each other.

“She’s not all that scary,” said the boy. “She’ll be elected governor and then everything will be all right again.” He ducked back in the window and reappeared a moment later with a knotted rope that he tossed out. It uncoiled and bounced off the wall, nearly reaching the alleyway floor. “Come on up.”

“What do you think?” Michaela whispered.

“I think it’s better than those guards finding us,” Anna said.

Michaela swallowed hard and nodded. “I have more practice at this than you. You go first. I’ll hold the rope.”

Anna appreciated that. She’d never been especially good at climbing the rope in gym class, but the knots helped as did Michaela holding it at the bottom. Anna clambered through the window to find the boy there, smiling at her.

He held out a hand. “I’m Kyle. Nice to meet you. The way those guards were hassling you, I take it you refuse to carry your papers?”

Anna shrugged. “Something like that.”

Michaela climbed in through the window like it was easy, then pulled up the knotted rope behind her.

“This is Kyle,” Anna introduced.

“Thanks for the help, Kyle. Nice rope ladder.”

The boy beamed. “They all said my rope ladder was silly.”

Anna cleared her throat. “So, Lady Yulanna, is she the…”

“Oh yeah,” said Kyle. “But she doesn’t like to be called the Witch of Puppets. And she’s not as scary as the stories make her seem. She’s not wild and uncultured, like the people in the mountain wastes.”

Anna frowned. She’d only barely met Flandel, but she didn’t think the people of the wastes were wild and uncultured.

“Come on. I’ll show you to the demonstration room.”

The building seemed recently abandoned: nice rugs spread upon hardwood floors, elaborate furniture draped in canvas sheets, wood-paneled walls shone with meticulous care. They went down a set of narrow stairs to a kitchen with bare cupboards and down another to a cellar. The cellar was a single bare room with a table to one side holding a spread of refreshments and stage at the far end before a set of narrow stone steps leading to a slanted door and, presumably, the outside.

A small group gathered by the table, drinking punch. A variety of folk: short and tall, dark and light, but all women, and all dressed in plain brown clothes, well-kept but homespun. They looked up when the girls entered and one of them approached. She wore a matching brown, bell-shaped cap with a bright yellow feather in the hat-band.

“Who have you brought us, Kyle?”

“They were being hassled by a guard,” said the boy. “They came up my rope ladder.”

The woman smiled at the boy indulgently, then looked at the girls. “I’m Millicent.”

Anna and Michaela introduced themselves.

“Thank you for coming. I hope Lady Yulanna’s demonstration encourages you not only to vote for her, but to encourage your fathers to do so as well. It’s no doubt Lady Yulanna has all but locked up the women’s vote, but we all know men are twice as likely as women in the valley to vote, and many of the men hereabouts never liked Lady Sabina simply for her sex.”

More people entered then, and Millicent went to greet them.

Michaela drew Anna off to one side. “It’s gotten political on this side of the fog.”

The room filled quickly until they were loosely shoulder to shoulder. There was a milling, chatty, comradery about the group. They spoke in clandestine whispers, testament to the illicit nature of their gathering. Most were women, but a few men peppered the crowd. Anna recognized a large, floppy black hat. She tugged on Michaela’s sleeve and pointed it out.

Michaela shrugged. “What of it?”

“What if it’s the man from the festival night. The one we rescued from the… the toys. There was something strange about him. We should—”

The cellar door banged open and a few moments later, a person in the white and gold uniform of a guard tumbled down the stairs. Anna jumped. The crowd gasped.

“Is that the man who stopped us?” Michaela said.

The man struggled to his feet, and proved Michaela correct. It was the guard with the scar. He looked out over the crowd, eyes wild with fear. Seeing no help and no escape, he turned back to the stairs. But a short woman descended and he scampered back. He turned to leap from the stage but the woman snapped her fingers and he halted, hanging in the air like a puppet.

Like her sister, Lady Yulanna was short, broad, and ancient. Unlike her sister, her clothes were simple, undyed, homespun. Her pure white hair was held back in a simple braid. Most striking were her shining black eyes, twice as large as normal in a broad face with a square jaw. She looked like a human whose normal proportions had been a bit squashed and flattened. And yet Anna couldn’t help but note she was beautiful, like a wood carving polished to a glow.

“Hello, my dears. Thank you for coming.” She waved her hand behind her and the cellar door closed with a quiet snick. Another wave pulled a chair from a corner to center stage. Ropes hung from the chair in coils. With the chair settled, the guardsman dropped onto it and the ropes tightened around wrists, arms, ankles, and knees

Anna stuck her hand in her shoulderbag and took hold of the Truename Spyglass. She extended it surreptitiously, looking around, but the only one who noticed was Michaela.

“What do you think?” Anna said. “Too risky?”

“It’d be silly to have gone to all that trouble and then not use it.”

Anna nodded.

Through the spyglass, the bound guardsman, appeared smaller, squirmier, terrified. Anna looked over the top of it. Without the benefit of the spyglass, though he looked uncertain, he kept up a stern veneer.

“Minister Bridgeford will hear of this, you cretins.” The guard’s voice shook.

Anna looked through the spyglass again and understood that this man hid behind his position, used his handsome face to conceal his fear. He feared others would use their power to harm him, so he used what he had to harm others first. All of this she saw though the Truename Spyglass in the way he tried to squirm away from the truth.

Anna shifted the spyglass to look at the Witch of Puppets, Lady Yulanna.

“Shush now,” the Witch of Puppets said. “Of course he’ll hear about this, just as he’s heard about every time I’ve punished one of his bullyboys.”

Anna saw none of the squirming attempt to evade the truth in the Witch of Puppets. Instead, she saw a gray and gold aura spread through her, like she was held up by her magic.

Subtly as she could, Anna collapsed and put away the Truename Spyglass.

“What did you see?” Michaela asked.

Lady Yulanna, Witch of Puppets, turned to address the gathered. “This Realm is governed by a trio of Realms unseen, unheard, but felt, known in only the most primal of ways, the Realms of Body, Mind, and Soul. And every living being you’ve ever met is composed of a balance of those three. Should the balance slip, the whole being slips, becomes erratic, unstable. Or sometimes, in the right hands, they can become something else entirely.”

Yulanna, the Witch of Puppets, stepped up behind the bound guardsman and put her hands on either side of his face. She closed her large eyes, her expression falling to calm.

The guardsman with the scar under his left eye grunted and squirmed against his bonds, but to no effect.

The change was gradual. First, his grunts and cries quieted to nothing. Then his squirming slowed and grew awkward. His expression deadened, eyes glassy. His hair became stiff and bristly. He shrank slowly, slipping from his bonds. He stumbled forward and fell flat on his face with a thunk.

The Witch of Puppets came around the chair, knelt, and picked up the doll.

Anna and Michaela looked at each other. Neither of them said it, but both knew what the other was thinking. What if she’d done this to Oscar Agayaba? What if he was a doll in her collection?

“I have shut this poor excuse for a man off from his Mind and his Spirit, leaving him just a body. In this case, that of a doll.” The Witch of Puppets looked out at the smattering of crowd. “Are there any questions?”

Anna bit her tongue and raised her hand.

The Witch of Puppets blinked at her. “Oh. Um. Yes?”

“Is the change permanent?” She cleared her throat, nervously but quietly.

The Witch of Puppets smiled. “That’s sweet of you, dear. But this man isn’t worthy of your sympathy.”

“Still,” Anna insisted. “I’d like to know.”

The Witch of Puppets raised an eyebrow. “Very well. The change need not be permanent. With good behavior, I might decide to change him back, to realign his Mind and Soul with his Body. Though, truth to tell, he was lacking in both already, through his choices.”

“And where did his… he’s just body now, right? Where did his mind and soul go?”

The Witch of Puppets nodded quietly. “They didn’t go anywhere. They’re just no longer connected. If I were particularly cruel, I could have split them completely and scattered them across the land. His body would sit, inanimate. His soul would drift, aimless. His mind, if it were strong enough, might animate some item or other, but usually they’re driven gently mad, mistaken for ghosts. Eventually the separation would be too much, and his essence would fade.”

Anna swallowed hard.

The Witch of Puppets grinned. “But I’m not so cruel as all that.” Her gaze was bright and clear and steady, and Anna wondered if she were casting a spell just by looking at her. “You ask interesting questions. What brings you here?”

Anna wasn’t a very good liar, but Michaela jumped in.

“We were going to breakfast when we were stopped by those guards.”

The Witch of Puppets’ gaze flicked between them, then nodded. “Bridgeford’s martial law has scooped dozens of innocents into prison or service or worse.” Then she smiled, her wide mouth parting to show large, straight teeth. “That’s why you can’t forget to vote, ladies. And encourage anyone else you can as well. If Bridgeford becomes Governor of Glenwood, the current martial law will be but a holiday.”

The crowd had diminished. They were nearly alone with the Witch of Puppets and the doll soldier she held negligently in one hand. She gave them a smile and a nod and turned back to the stairs.

Michaela gave Anna’s hand a squeeze and they hurried to follow the last trail of the crowd back up to the main floor where Millicent directed them to the back door.

“It won’t do to have Bridgeford’s men see a bunch of folks leaving here all at once, so give it a slow count of thirty, then leave.”

They did as they were told, and as they wended through the alleyways, Michaela said, “What now?”

“If the Witch of Puppets is responsible for Oscar’s disappearance, that probably means she turned him into a doll.”

Michaela shivered. “Please tell me that doesn’t mean we’ve got to find and search an old lady’s creepy doll collection which used to be real people, making it even creepier than normal.”

The murmur of a crowd caught their attention as they reemerged onto Clayfield Street. They found themselves on the far side. Anna recognized the train station and the post office, though the color seemed drained of them both, but where the gas station was on the other side of the fog, here there was a gazebo with a crowd gathered before it: men in dark jackets and brimmed hats with only a few women here and there. Anna looked for the large floppy hat, but didn’t see it.

“Should have looked at him through the spyglass,” she chided herself.

“What’s that?” Michaela asked.

Before Anna could respond, a man stepped to the fore of the gazebo. Bridgeford looked much like his posters. Thick brows, thick moustache. The grumbly mumble of the men settled to silence.

“Gentlemen. Thank you for coming. I take it everyone’s papers are in order?”

A chuckle rippled through the crowd.

“We all know what happened under the leadership of Sabina, the so-called Witch of Money. Gambling. Alcohol. Festivals. Women voting. Crime rising like never before. Outsiders coming into our valley and acting like they own the place. I served with Lady Sabina for many years. I tried to steer her down the right path, but her inability to protect us from the barbarians of the mountain wastes, from her sister the Witch of Puppets, even the patrons of her own bathhouse from pirates, well, she’s been ousted. Well done, all.”

A wave of self-congratulatory applause washed over them.

“As Minister of War, I know how to deal with the likes of air pirates and bounty hunters. I know what it takes to make forays up into the mountain wastes. I know what it takes to protect you and your families, starting with the martial law recently passed that has crushed crime here in Glenwood.”

Anna’s attention wavered and her gaze slid over the crowd to the post office, and then just past to where the scarecrow of Old King stood. On this side of the fog, the scarecrow wasn’t dusty or tattered or haphazard. His golden, high-collared shirt was fine and clean, his red tie brilliant as a ruby. The gold and red paisley vest was securely buttoned under his loose black coat with brass buttons. His black slacks were crossed at the ankles capped by a pair of shiny black shoes. Upon his sackcloth head with black button eyes was a black tophat with a gold hatband.

Anna nudged Michaela.

“In my Glenwood, that scarecrow is called Old King and has been there forever. How long do you suppose this one’s been here?”

Michaela looked. “It’s pretty well filled out for a scarecrow. Do you think…”

Anna pulled the Truename Spyglass from her shoulderbag and looked at the scarecrow through it. There she saw not a scarecrow, but a young man in fine clothes tied to the post. He had short blond hair and grey-blue eyes and looked like a younger version of Ivan Agayaba. Anna handed over the spyglass to Michaela who looked through it.

“Well,” Michaela said.

Anna nodded.

The crowd applauded again, this time with more force.

“We shall make certain any foreigner who approaches the borders of our city-state has passed thorough investigation before being allowed in,” Bridgeford declared in his deep tones. “We shall capture and execute every pirate who dares invade our airspace. We shall invade the highlands and crush those barbarians.”

Under the next round of applause, Anna leaned close to Michaela. “We’ve got to find Ivan.”