“Dixon’s Dead End,” we both intone. So named after a man who was hit by a train here.
“But it doesn’t make any sense.” I point behind us. “We were just walking west down Vallis, weren’t we? And Dixon’s Dead End is directly east.”
We look at each other.
“I don’t remember. I was following you,” he says.
“And I was following you.”
It’s like two people with their hands on the planchette of a Ouija board. You don’t know if the other person has been guiding it, or…
If somethingelseis.
Falling Rock Forest has been inching closer to town over the years, eating up all of this area, the abandoned road. Wispy gray clouds skate across half the moon, and the broken moonlight slants across a low tree branch just overhead, illumining a strange creature sitting upon it with its long furry tail wrapped around its body.
“Hello there, little huggle,” I singsong. Morgan looks first at me, I think because he’s never heard me use that tone of voice before, and then upward, following my line of sight.
The creature jumps down. Morgan goes very still, and I kneel, a hand outstretched in offering.
It sniffs my fingers, glass-bright eyes roving nervously, ears twitching.
“That looks like a squirrel,” Morgan says carefully.
I examine the animal. Small enough to carry in my hand, with bushy light brown fur. Large, orange, wide-set eyes, three black rings for pupils, one within another within another.
A slow smile spreads over my face. “It isn’t. This is a huggle.”
And this time, it doesn’t change. Doesn’t morph back into a squirrel. It watches me for a second, then darts toward the trees. Waits right at the edge as if beckoning us to follow.
Morgan and I look at each other. The animation in his face is fascinating to me—he is so easy to read. His expressive features remind me of those digital picture frames that click to a new image every five seconds. Something’s always going on: a feathering of muscles, one type of smile evolving into another, a fluid rise of a sharp black eyebrow, a shocked gasp. All the world’s a stage, and I’m watching him give one long, continuous performance.
“The clock,” somebody says.
I stop, grabbing Morgan’s sleeve.
“What?” he asks under his breath, staring at my fingers.
“Did you hear that?”
He shakes his head. I search his eyes as the voice continues: “Of old and new was always…” He makes no reaction, now absorbed in my face.
I step back, and the voice ceases.
Step forward again. There’s a rush of wind. “The clock—”
And then back. It ceases. “You don’t hear that?”
Morgan’s forehead pinches. “Hear what?”
I grip my lantern tight, swallowing a hard lump in my throat.Zelda, Zelda.I feel the trees reaching for me.We remember you.
Following the huggle, I walk three paces toward the forest’s edge, and this time, I do not step back when the unseen person begins to speak.
“The clock of old and new was always talking about how she used to be human and had butter-yellow hair. That was before the sorceress stuffed her inside a clock.”
The forest breathes out, branches twisting, the glow offireflies reminding me of yellow cat’s eyes painted on the wardrobe in Luna’s bedroom. The voice does not say anything else.
I glance at Morgan. “Ready?”
