“Trace, wake up,” a maternal voice tenderly implored from on high. “You need to wake up. There’s not much time left.”
The speaker’s soothing yet cautionary tenor drifted through the air like fallen leaves swirling upward with the wind. This ethereal intonation belonged to a young woman whose company and concern the stoat could not recall, but ultimately, was of little consequence. Even though her presence did not know a home in his memory, or what it had since become, her compassion and motherly affection tugged at Trace’s heartstrings as he awakened. He gasped. Breath came suddenly with a rush of cool air into his lungs. Afterwards, the ermine panted while beads of sweat flowed past his cheeks onto the dirt. Among them were tears, much to Trace’s surprise. Stirring his soul to action, the young woman had given him reason to rise.
“Who’s there?” Trace asked, his own voice a faint light in twilight’s obscurity.
“Please, there’s no time. Tyson’s in danger. You’re the only one who can help him now.”
“Show yourself,” he demanded, studying the darkened scenery coming into view as the cloud of sleep lifted off his lidded eyes.
“Take him home, Trace. The boy’s in danger,” she urgently stressed.
Frustrated with the lack of clarity, Trace asked, “What boy? What are you talking about? How can I help anyone get anywhere if I don’t even know where I am?”
With weakened legs, the ermine rose to his feet on uneven soil. Trace’s whole body trembled as he struggled to remain standing. The ermine had awoken atop a tiny hill that stood inside a vast, pristine forest. It overlooked a small strip of bare dirt intersecting the untamed wilderness for about a couple hundred feet. The strip was lined on either side with dozens of derelict cars that had all since rusted with the rain. The difficulty came in trying to perceive much else. It must’ve been toward the end of the day since there was little in the way of sunlight to guide him in any direction. A few shafts of anemic white light streamed into view from above, but ironically, they only served to accentuate, and not banish, the primeval gloom which inescapably entombed him among the trees.
“This weird place. This forest” the ermine muttered as he examined the eerily ruined street surrounded by towering oak and elm trees that loomed all around like enormous, unmarked graves. “I know I’ve been here before. That much I know; but I can’t remember when.”
‘In fact,’ Trace thought, so frightened as to not yet articulate his suspicions, let alone vocalize them, ‘I can’t remember much of anything. It’s not all gone, but there’s barely anything. It keeps changing, too. I can’t nail any of it down. It’s all slipping away from me.
“What the hell happened to me? And that woman!”
In his perplexity, he’d forgotten all about the voice and its admonition. Spinning a full three-hundred sixty degrees in place, Trace saw no sign of life or any indication that the ground had been unsettled by some trespasser. Not only that, but aside from his own activity, the stoat was the thing upsetting the terrain’s tranquil and despondent sterility. There were no sounds to hear other than his heavy breathing and the crunch of leaves under every footfall. No tracks of a scampering animal could be heard disturbing the soil. Even the wind was absent here. This land was a forest in stasis, motionless in melancholy. The whole world now had become this coffin, an unending cemetery where the quiet, primordial trees stood in memoriam to a lifeless planet. And the only one who remarkably defied the casualty of total death was nowhere to be found.
“That was no hallucination. I know she’s here,” Trace concluded, scanning the ground for any suggestion that he wasn’t alone, but to no avail. “She couldn’t have gone far, but where?”
Upon thorough inspection, the stoat’s curiosity was stoked by the subtle sign of movement within the wreckage. But there was more to it than that. Beyond mere movement there was a brief flash of light. Akin to a quick glint reflecting off a glass surface, it attracted his attention like a moth drawn toward flame in the dim, murky woods. Trace tilted his head to take a closer look, but when its likely source came into view, the ermine knew he had to act.
Skidding down the steep slope, Trace cried, “Hey kid, what are you doing out here?”
It was a young boy, a raccoon, no more than eight years-old. The raccoon kit clutched at the right side of his head. From where Trace stood, he appeared to be cowering beside a corroded car frame all the while whispering a few choice words under his breath.
Slurring his words, the boy asked, “Where am I? Who are you?”
“Hey, don’t you worry,” Trace quietly replied. “My name’s Trace. I’m here to help.”
To reassure the kit of his good intentions, the stoat took hold of the boy’s shoulder, but the child’s reaction was entirely unexpected. The boy gasped and pulled back as if appalled by Trace’s very touch. The one observable eye from underneath that jacket hood projecting fear and bewilderment behind a curtain of blond bangs.
Horrorstruck, the ermine inquired, “What’s wrong?”
“My head,” the boy whimpered, on the verge of tears. “It really hurts to move it.”
“Here,” he said, reaching out to pull back the hood, “let me have a look.”
Removing it, Trace was dismayed by the severity of Tyson’s condition and the relative simplicity of what needed to be done. The kit’s blonde hair had made it easy to spot the point at which his head struck the car. The sunflower yellow hues had left the red impact crater an unbearably vivid focal point that was impossible to miss. His first impulse was to gather the raccoon kit in his arms and escape to safety. It made Trace wince to watch the wound spill a steady stream blood of down the left side of Tyson’s head. His life was draining out his body not in drops but in torrents. It sickened Trace to think of what the boy was now enduring. As easy as it may have seemed to pick him up off the ground and run toward civilization, such a move would have provoked panic in the young boy. The ermine stowed his unease for the moment, regained a hold over his emotions, and thinking of where his first steps should take him, looked upon the raccoon kit with the sobriety of familial warmth.
“You’re bleeding pretty badly, Tyson,” the ermine calmly stated, evaluating the injury and assessing his options. “I need to get you to a hospital as soon as possible. We need to make sure you don’t have a concussion. You could be in serious trouble if left like this.”
Upon hearing this plan, the raccoon kit pulled back even further and cried out, “No! We can’t go. Not yet. We can’t leave Daeja behind! She’s in danger!”
“Whoa! Take it easy,” the stoat said as he steadied the staggering boy. “Who’s in danger? This girl—is she a friend of yours? Tell me what happened.”
“We were attacked. This smoke monster thing came outta nowhere and chased us into the forest. I don’t know what happened to her. Daeja was right next to me one second, and then she was gone! I was right there! She didn’t trip and fall into anything. It’s like she just disappeared.”
‘This isn’t good. He’s hysterical,’ the stoat considered in contemplation. ‘I’m not sure what to make of this whole smoke monster thing, but all this talk of monsters isn’t a good sign. I hope brain damage isn’t the reason why he’s seeing such messed up shit, but we won’t know for sure until he’s out of harm’s way. As for his friend, I don’t know what we’re going to do. I just hope I remember enough to be useful.’
“You’re safe, okay? Relax, Tyson, I got you,” he said, removing a small piece of cloth he found inside his overcoat. Trace slowly drew back the boy’s hood and pressed the handkerchief against Tyson’s head. Groaning, the boy understandably grimaced as the stoat applied pressure. “We need to stem the bleeding. So, keep this here and press tightly. Can you do that for me?”
The raccoon kit didn’t question the order, but even then, the boy was hesitant to do little else but tend to his injuries. The frenzied fear upon his face made it apparent that Tyson had more pressing concerns on his mind than his own health.
“I’m not leaving without Daeja,” he repeated, this time composed and resolute. “She probably ran back home. We’ll catch up with her if we hurry!”
The ermine sighed. “What are you saying, Tyson? That your friend lives out there, “he gestured toward the uncultivated wilderness that loomed all around them, “in the middle of the forest? And this smoke monster thing? It worries me. We need to get you to a hospital— “
“I know what it sounds like, but you gotta— “
“I know you want to help your friend,” Trace interjected, “I do, too, but I’m not going to leave you out here either. Not like this. We will find her, Tyson. I promise you. We will find Daeja.”
“You don’t understand,” the boy declared. “Her house. It’s not far from here. We’ll walk right past it on our way out.”
“Tyson, we could get lost out here in the meantime. It’ll be dark soon, and you’re seriously hurt. We can’t waste time wandering aimlessly around this place in hopes of — “
“Please! It’s the first place she’d go. I need to know if she’s okay.”
During that time, the ermine had unconsciously placed both hands around the raccoon’s arms. After some time had passed, Trace was taken aback by the warmth he felt underneath his fingertips. Not only that, but the boy’s whole body was now aglow with an eerie white light. The more Tyson spoke, the brighter and more fearsome that white light became. It wasn’t long until Tyson was entirely engulfed in a luminous shroud. It was, in the fact, the same dazzling radiance that had drawn Trace toward this spot. Unlike before, however, it was a sustained smoldering essence.
“Uh, I—I’ll do everything in my power to help, Tyson. Please understand that,” Trace began, struggling to stay articulate, “b-b—ut we need to think about the b-b—ig picture here. You can’t help Daeja if you’re—”
The stoat yelped, flinched and yanked back as an unexpected eruption of energy repelled him. The stoat instinctively stood up and withdrew a few steps as the air around him crackled with electrical discharge. Soon thereafter, the white light faded with each breath the boy took. Eventually, the light contracted until only the faintest outlines of its enormity were left to linger and enring around the raccoon kit like a heavenly aura.
“Okay,” the ermine said, startled and on edge. “we’ll check her house on the way out. If someone’s home, I can then call you an ambulance from there.”
For the moment, he hardly believed he was even saying these words, let alone saying them with any conviction. Yet even now, even with his mind frenetically trying to parse some sense out of what he was seeing and what he felt, the ermine knew not to discount what Tyson had told him. Regardless of how outlandish it came across, the boy believed what he said with such sincere certitude that to reject it outright felt irresponsible. Trace scrutinized Tyson with skepticism as the capricious sounds of crackling electricity slowly scattered into silence. But the moment he reverted to normal, the stoat composed himself and drew near the raccoon kit.
Trace asked, sporting a reassuring grin, “So how about we get a move on and find her?”
The boy smiled feebly as he firmly held the handkerchief in place underneath the hood.
“Thank you,” Tyson rasped.
Again, Trace found himself surprised by the boy’s presence. A cold shiver spilt down his spine as those two words pervaded his thoughts. It was as if they, these words, were together but a single pick probing the tumbler to unlock some sealed room inside his head. Trace shook off the apprehension as best he could and gathered the raccoon. Cautiously, he bent on one knee and took the boy upon his back. Relieved that he was not repelled a second time by some unseen strength, wrapping the boy’s arms around his neck, the stoat steadied the raccoon kit up on high. With Tyson safely in tow, Trace slid down the loose earth to the dry riverbed.
“Okay,” the ermine argued, “the trick right now is finding our way out. Can you tell me how to get to her house from here?”
“Yeah, just follow the trail—this road here, I mean—until it ends up there,” the boy said unprompted, pointing at what amounted to a dirty path approximately the size of a city street. “Once you reach the trees, the wisps will show us the way there.”
“Wisps?” the stoat asked, concerned. “I’m not sure what you mean, dude. What am I supposed to be—”
“Look! Trace, over there,” Tyson shouted. “Can’t you see them? Right there!”
The ermine examined the way ahead and was arrested by the sight of a ghostly, scintillating glow gleaming prominently through the trees about one hundred and fifty feet directly up ahead of them. Trace was unable to ignore or overlook the shifting, shimmering cyan lights summoning all onlookers into the lush forest beyond. In the quickening dusk it was the most visually striking aspect of this benighted wilderness.
“Yeah, I see them,” he responded with palpable apprehension. “I can’t see all that much from here though. Are you sure that’s where we’re supposed to go?”
“I’m sure,” the boy definitively affirmed, “They’ve helped us find our back home before. I think that’s what they’re doing now. I’m sure of it.”
With that said, the two of them set out toward the otherworldly lights directing them deeper into the interior. It took but a minute or so before the ermine took notice of the cars themselves. There must have been about two dozen of them in total along both sides, but only a couple were in recognizable condition. Most were windowless, hollowed shells of their former selves coated in orange rust, but a few stood out from the rest. Unlike the others, a noticeable few were immaculate. So much so, in fact, as to appear as if rolled right off the assembly line. No dents or scuff marks pocked those select few sedans. To say the very least, it was unsettling.
“What are all these cars doing way the hell out here?”
“I don’t know,” Tyson meagerly answered. “we’ve never been out here. I know I haven’t. This forest is so big though. It’s really easy to get lost. I mean, Daeja’s lived here her whole life, and she still hasn’t seen most of it.”
“Either way, I’m thinking if we just keep moving, we’ll find a road soon enough. There have got to be hikers around here, too. It’s empty for sure, but this place can’t be that empty. We can’t be the only ones out and—"
Trace was startled as his foot struck a soda can into view. The hollow clanking that came with it disturbed the unsettling silence that once surrounded them. As the pair approached the can, the ermine examined the labeling and was perplexed by what he discovered. From the look of it, it was a can of Coca-Cola. The elements had not yet weathered the branding beyond recognition. The swooping white letters still stood prominently in contrast to its bright blue backdrop as if nothing was amiss.
“Huh, that’s weird,” Trace remarked. “Something’s not right.’
Trace wasn’t sure why the navy-blue Coke can bothered him, but even with his memories in such a haze, he knew it wasn’t right. The stoat couldn’t give much a reason as to why it did, but maybe a buried memory, one not yet fully restored, was stirring to wake inside that locked room. Upon waking, it rightfully told the ermine everything he need to know through whisper from behind that closed door. That regardless of its ostensibly ordinary appearance, the soda can was indicative of an even greater incongruence that had not yet revealed itself in full. It was an oddity by itself, but soon more oddities would make themselves apparent if the stoat chose to look more thoroughly. Trace knew this much intuitively. He also surmised that what dwelt here in darkness would be best left undiscovered. If not only for his sanity, then Tyson’s, as well.
Tyson saw Trace stare intently at the ground and groggily asked, “What is it, Trace?”
“It’s nothing,” the ermine calmly answered, “Sorry, I just got lost in thought, that’s all.”
Trace didn’t stop long enough to get a closer look at the can or anything else that so happened to be strewn in the dirt. The tip of one yellow Converse knocking it back out of sight as he strode deeper into the foreboding forest. The stoat did, however, take note of each rear license plate on every car they passed. He was not completely sure why he felt the need to do this, but after seeing that curious soda can, the ermine knew it would yield more clues as to where they were. The first few weren’t so shocking. The usual suspects revealed themselves in succession: Missouri, Nebraska, and of course, Iowa. But it only took a few more steps for the familiar perplexity to come back, and it had caused his legs to stop of their own volition.
“The license plate,” the ermine answered, studying the bumper of a powder blue Dodge Challenger.
The art it featured was inviting enough. It depicted a lonely windmill at sunset. The red, orange and violet hues of the dying light bathed the nearby shrublands in a fierce, alchemical scheme. Suspended right above the horizon’s edge, the last rays of daylight delicately illuminated a field of blue bonnets stretching beneath a scorching sea of flame and wispy white waves. Trace wasn’t quite sure what had compelled him to admire every detail, but there was an aspect at work behind the façade. While the featured art was inviting enough, nevertheless, the plate itself insinuated the veracity of a world that could not be their own. Wherever this muscle car originated, it didn’t come from anywhere, or an America for that matter, either of them could comfortably call home.
“South Texas?”
“Yeah, Trace? What about Texas?”
“Not just Texas, Tyson. This plate reads ‘South Texas’. As if that part of Texas was its own state.”
“But it’s not,” the boy outright stated as if he needed convincing, “I know it’s not.”
“You’re right,” he said, giving the impeccable muscle car one last glance before moving onward. “It’s not. But let’s leave that alone for now. Are we any closer to Daeja’s house?”
“Yeah,” the raccoon confirmed. “We’re not too far from the creek. There’s like a hill. A big one. Once we get there, to the creek, I’ll know where to go.”
“In that case, then let’s not waste any more time here.”
With that said, the stoat took once last disbelieving glance at the problematic plate and passed into the forest proper.
Even with his head trauma, Tyson’s sense of direction had not suffered so thoroughly. He was right. They weren’t too far from the creek. Amidst the silent proceedings surrounding them, the only sound Trace heard, the only decisive sign of life, was the sound of water pouring and flowing to some enduring terminus. The sound was faint but unmistakable, and it was toward that sound the stoat resolved to travel. But Trace’s determination stumbled the moment a new voice, this time sonorous and oppressive, emerged from the ether to greet him like an encroaching thunderstorm.
“It doesn’t matter how fast you run or how far you flee,” it said, echoing authoritatively. “So long as you remain asleep, here in my domain, you’ll never be too far out of reach.”
In near terror, the stoat stole a glance over his shoulder. From what little he could see, Trace thought he saw that wall of darkness noticeably stalking upon them, assailing them both like some predacious animal in preparation for the kill. Swiftly consuming every oak and cottonwood inside an inaccessible veil of shadow, the hunter steadily advanced upon its weak and vulnerable prey.
“The door to your world might shut, but even with my diminished strength, I can still exert my will over this land and its people,” the ominous voice growled omnisciently.
‘Is that,’ the ermine surmised in horror, ‘the smoke monster?’
Trace was so preoccupied with what approached them from the rear that he failed to take note of a new noise announcing itself. And unlike the silently creeping abyssal cloud, however, it was more unsettling in how tangible it seemed in comparison. Off to the right, rustling in the underbrush, came the sound of steps. Deliberate and reserved, these deftly demure steps were designed to go undetected. But deep down inside, on a subconscious level, Trace knew they were being followed by another unknown force. As they traveled over the loose earth and indigenous detritus, his thoughts returned to the woman who woke him from sleep, and the dire words of warning she imparted.
‘That can’t be,’ the ermine pondered, purposefully threading his way between the imposing trees and shrubbery. “That thing can’t be real. Now that I’m thinking of it, I’m not sure if this whole place is even real. There’s no life here.”
The sound of streaming water was closer now, and with that sound came the sight of sunshine shimmering through dense curtains of leaves and bushes. The satisfying crunch of twigs and fallen branches acting in accord with the sound of oncoming currents helped propel him toward the water’s edge, but even now, the enduring fear had become impossible to evade.
‘We can’t stop moving. Not now. But if it keeps this pace, I don’t know how we’re going to get away. The best I can do now is keep moving. I owe this kid that much. I owe it to get him home.’
“There they are! The lights,” the kit said excitedly, pointing. “They’re back!”
“You mean these things right here?”
Trace wasn’t quite sure just what he was seeing, but what fascinated him the most now was that none of it so happened to be unfamiliar. Floating mere inches from their faces, bright blue orbs of translucent light encircled them as they each seemingly slid into and then out of existence upon observation. The specter of dread descended upon the ermine as the blue lights disappeared only to return nearby, enticing him with the allure of disclosure.
“I know I’ve seen this before. I know I have,” the ermine muttered, plumbing the depths of his psyche for the elusive revelation. Trace knew that this truth, and every other answer sought, laid hidden behind the one locked door. “For the life of me, I just can’t remember when.”
“Daeja calls them ‘wisps’,” the boy declared, clarifying what he said previously. “They usually show up around places with a lot of magic.”
“I don’t know why,” he paused, reflecting, “but I expected to see a lot more of them.” At that moment, the implications behind what the boy just told him made themselves apparent. “Wait. What’s this about magic? We don’t need to worry about these things, do we?”
“Oh, that. It’s nothing to worry about,” Tyson assured before groaning in pain, hastily inhaling as his head throbbed. “They’re not scary or anything.”
“And these wisps,” the ermine questioned as he took his first steps onto the nebulous shore of rock and sand before the water’s edge, “they’ll help us get out, like you said?”
“These ones here lead the way to her house,” Tyson clarified, clearly consoled. “It’s like a secret path back home in case you get lost. Pretty cool, huh?”
“How would Daeja know about this stuff? What they are and what they do? It’s not anything I’d expect to hear from a little kid. Did she hear all this from her family?”
“Yeah,” the raccoon kit confirmed, “her mom and dad know all about these woods. Daeja’s had family living here for a long time now. Her mom was the one who told us about this trail a while ago. She told us to follow the lights if we ever got lost and couldn’t find the driveway.”
“Y’know, with all this talk of magic,” the stoat began jokingly, “I guess—what—does that make your friend some kind of wi—,”
He choked. Unable to finish his thoughts or even move a muscle, the stoat could do little else but stand there shuddering. A shooting pain bore into his heart and radiated out across all his appendages. In short order, that pain was followed by a strong, tingling sensation that numbed his arms and legs. The stoat’s body shivered impotently as he endeavored to maneuver if but an inch. The act itself was an indisputable struggle, but thankfully, attempting the task merely proved taxing and not impossible. He was in the throes of what could best be described as a full-body muscle contraction. Every joint felt locked and immobilized.
“Let him go,” a new voice called from behind, ordering the ermine with an incensed yet measured stance.
“Daeja!”
“I said,” a girl said, her tone becoming low and surprisingly intimidating, “let him go.”
“Daeja, what’s wrong? Where were you? We’ve been looking all over for you.”
Out the corner of his right eye, Trace saw her, the intruder: a young lynx girl, a kit the same age as the raccoon. She appeared ordinary enough with her red and yellow flannel shirt, blue jean shorts and brown hiking boots, but these features soon faded from the foreground. They were obscured by the strength of two bright purplish-blue lights raging with ferocity around both her hands. The ermine grimaced and did his best to both continue supporting Tyson’s weight while pivoting to confront the intruder.
“Tyson, get away from him,” she argued, emotions flaring beneath the forceful façade. “This guy’s dangerous. He and his friend came to hurt us.”
For a second, the boy appeared unable to absorb what she said. With one hand he held down the handkerchief, and with the other Tyson wildly gesticulated his helplessness and bewilderment.
“I don’t understand,” the raccoon kit declared, unsure of what to consider, “That can’t be true. I know I just met this guy,” Tyson stammered, “but Trace wouldn’t do that. I just know he wouldn’t hurt me. Or you. Daeja, you gotta trust me.
She stood upright with both fists in preparation for combat. The undulating purplish-blue lights were continuously swelling with the persistent threat of imminent eruption.
“His friend chased me down like an animal. I thought I was going to die. I lost him, though, but he’s still out there. I’m not sure where he is right now, but he can’t be too far behind. And that’s why we need to get out of here.”
Now that he’d gotten a better look at this girl, the stoat was taken aback by the scathing expression of abhorrence the lynx wore like a firm mask. The thick bangs of her shoulder-length tawny hair narrowed this choleric gaze she flaunted into a fine point. Daeja’s perceptive and expressive chestnut brown eyes were focusing on Trace’s face like an arrow being pulled back into a strained bowstring, primed to let loose its pitiless volley. If not for her eyes, there would be no other tell indicative of her countenance. The girl’s mouth was but a taut line that betrayed no hint of any strong feelings. But those large brown eyes had revealed more than their fair share. They divulged a stanch, stubborn determination that belied her youth.
The ermine may have not remembered much that would offer him a fitting defense against these accusations, but that was assuming reason could still persuade her.
I don’t know if anything I say would make a difference at this point,’ the stoat contemplated, peering into Daeja’s searing gaze, ‘The way she looks at me, even with the best of intentions on my side, she’d just as soon strike me dead than hear me out.’
“I won’t let you hurt him,” the girl snarled. “You hear me? Let him go. Now!”
“Listen, I don’t what you saw out there,” Tyson interjected, “but he’s trying to help. We were on our way to your house before you showed up. Why would Trace go out of his way to help me back home if he just wanted to hurt me—to hurt us—anyway?”
“I won’t ask you again,” Daeja demanded decisively. As she spoke, the stoat was rocked with more distressing shocks sweeping over his body in relentless, abrading currents. The ermine visibly faltered as he strove to remain standing. “Let him go, or I swear to God,” her once secure equanimity now cracking, “I’ll make it hurt a whole lot worse if you don’t—”
“You’ve said your peace,” a newcomer kindly insisted, “Now please leave it there.”
Once she’d finished speaking, this ethereal interloper, a hush fell upon them. The debilitating electric shocks, along with the cramping and numbness, dissipated the moment she interfered. The ermine breathed in a relieved sigh as he was provided reprieve. With rejuvenated energy, he straightened up and lifted the kit up his back.
“I understand why you’re upset, Daeja, but now’s not the time to stop moving. If we stop now, both you and Tyson will be in even greater danger.”
Trace didn’t recall the voice from memory, but skepticism had swayed him from immediately giving into his innate curiosity. The expression this newcomer conveyed was one of an ancient assurance, but even with this kind, cool demeanor she presented, the stoat could not bring himself to embrace the promise of goodwill being offered. This so happened to be Trace’s train of thought just as he turned around to gain confirmation of his worst fears, but in the here and now, they were not corroborated.
Daeja dumbfoundedly asked, “Who are you? How do you know my name?”
Originally, the lynx looked up at the newcomer with keen, fearful eyes, but the longer she considered the woman’s presence, the more assuaged Daeja appeared from Trace’s perspective. It was as if her very visage had this soothing effect. The ermine felt this wave of ease wash over him with that same regard, as well. She was a young woman—if, in fact, her youthful appearance was no duplicity—sheathed in a long, hooded white cardigan sweater. The silvery curls of her wavy bob framed a face of black fur which held the grey hues of a timeless gaze. From the soles of her ankle boots to the tips of both tall, pointed ears, the contours of her features were wholly slim and narrow. These striking traits coupled with her thin, forked tail, lent a wraithlike mien to her lissome figure as if she were no more than an apparition or mirage. The stranger who stood on a lone, solitary boulder surrounded by ever-coursing river water embodied every sense of the word strange.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before,” the raccoon kit declared, “What’s your name?”
“And as for you, Tyson, my name is Cassandra. But you may call me Cassi for short. I’ve known about all three of you for quite some time now. In fact, I’ve been watching over you two in particular,” the woman motioned with a small nod toward the children, “for most your lives. This is just the first time I’ve chosen to reveal myself.”
“You’re the one who spoke to me,” Trace achieved after some effort, “aren’t you? The one who woke me up.”
“Indeed I am. Now if you all come with me, I promise you I will answer what I can. For now, however, we must keep our distance from that shadow. I don’t have much strength to hold him back. It won’t be long before he breaks through the barrier I’ve erected, and I shudder to think of what would happen if he were to find these two here."
“You know that much, huh? Fine. All right then, tell me this,” the ermine demanded, indicating with a small nod over his shoulder, “just what the hell is that thing back there? That smoke monster. Tell me that much, and we’ll follow you out of here.”
“Not now, I’m afraid. It’s as I’ve said, there’s not much time left. So, come.”
“Oh, why’s that?”
“The King,” she answered, eyeing the tree line now completely consumed in shadow, “He’s coming.”
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