Page 33

“The mushroom,” the caterpillar said, as if she had spoken aloud.

“Well, I do want to see more…if only to see the river,” Rose said.

She reached out and broke off a small chunk of the mushroom, then went around to the far side, causing the caterpillar to swivel its head in order to watch her. She broke off a piece from there too.

“Oh, Rose,” said the caterpillar, its eyes darkening to midnight blue.

“Yes?” She watched it intently and nibbled on the first piece of the mushroom she’d broken off. The flesh was tough and nutty.

“Oh”—the caterpillar shivered, then convulsed like a worm on a fishing hook—“Rose—”

Rose looked wildly around for anything “more” she might now see, and for any means of escape. On all sides, the grass seemed thicker and darker and to curl itself in on her. The path she had made on her way to the mushroom had nearly closed over, but now she looked, she did see something new there, something curious…A disembodied grin hung in the air, wider and more full of teeth than any grin she’d seen before.

“Oh Rose Penrose,

My dark heart grows…”

Although a mouthful of sharp and bodiless teeth seemed far from inviting, Rose moved toward it and away from the writhing caterpillar.

As she drew closer, Rose saw that the grin belonged to an enormous cat who seemed to be filling himself in somewhat belatedly. The cat turned away as she closed on it and set off back along the trail she’d left, greatly enlarging it.

It was the silence behind her that made Rose look back before the curve of the cat’s trail took the mushroom from sight. The fungi had turned completely black, like polished onyx, and the caterpillar lay wrapped in a cocoon of bone-white silk. Rose hurried on, having no wish to see what might emerge from such a shroud.

The cat picked up speed, barreling through the grass, which seemed, if anything, to become thicker and taller, though Rose could have sworn they were heading away from the river.

She followed the cat at a run through a tunnel filled with emerald shadow. Only a lashing tail led her now, as if the solitary grin had been replaced by the hindmost fragment. She ran on, panting and desperate not to trip, convinced at any moment she would hear the beating of dark wings, and the worm would have her.

The grass failed suddenly and completely, but the darkness did not. Rose stumbled to a halt beside the cat, who was in truth larger than a lion. Darkness surrounded them. Above, a sky scattered with brilliant stars. In their light, Rose watched the cat licking his paw, totally ignoring her, seemingly completely at ease.

“Where are we?”

By way of answer, the cat let out a tiny mew, wholly at odds with its size. As if the sound had caught in their facets, scores of crystals, some as large as Rose herself, began to glow with a faint light, revealing that what she had thought was open ground was in fact a deep gorge lined with crystals, or perhaps even a cave, with the lights she had taken for stars actually being crystals studding the distant roof.

The cat mewed again, like the smallest of kittens, and the light intensified.

“What?” The voice sounded both distant and close. “What?” And irritated. “What is it?”

Mew? said the cat.

“So, you’re back? I hope you found wherever you went worth it.”

Mew…

“You can’t be hungry again. Surely.”

Mew!

“Why must you disturb me in my Fortress of Solitude?”

Mew.

“How can I do great works if I’m constantly hounded by a worthless feline?”

MEW!

The crystals blazed now, making a silhouette of the approaching man. Rose could tell nothing of him except that he wore a robe.

The man seemed old, but in that thin and wiry way that won’t admit to the years carried. The crystals’ light revealed dark locks slicked back from a sharply defined widow’s peak. His robe was a patchwork of many pieces and colors—fur here, leather there, scarlet silk, gold brocade, all in a haphazard mix. Finger paint applied in lines on his cheekbones and forehead gave him the appearance of some pagan wizard, as did the gnarled staff he carried, which might have been torn from a forest oak. Though a pair of comfortable tartan slippers offset the image.