Here’s the latest installment of the serial story. I hope people are enjoying it (I’m not even sure how many people are reading it). If you’re just stumbling upon it, chapter one is here, and you can find the previous chapter here.

Chapter Nine

            Sebastian would have been much more comfortable in the forest than on the road. He felt exposed with nowhere to go for cover. It didn’t help that his sword hung wrapped in burlap on his back where it would take him precious seconds to get to it instead of in its scabbard at his side where he could draw it in a heartbeat. But the princess was correct that they were more conspicuous sneaking through the woods.

As he walked, he glanced over his shoulder every so often to make sure they weren’t being followed. Although the princess’s ruse appeared to have worked, there was a part of him that expected to see the witch’s men coming after them.

“Would you relax?” The sound startled him, and he turned to see the princess looking up at him, her hands on her hips. “You’re so jumpy you’re making me jumpy.”

“I’m sorry, your highness.”

“Do you think someone is following us? Or do you think we’ll be recognized if someone sees us on the road?”

“I don’t know. They don’t seem to be watching the roads anymore, so the search may have moved on. They didn’t recognize us in that village, but it is possible that we might meet someone who knows me well enough to recognize me, no matter how I’m dressed.”

“Are you really that well-known?”

“Probably not to anyone we happen to encounter on the road, but I’m likely quite familiar to the people who would be looking for you. I’ve spent most of my life around the court and even trained with some of the royal guards, some of whom now work for the witch.”

“Well, then, it sounds like you’re the liability here.” He was fairly certain she meant it as a joke, given that her eyes sparkled with dry humor, but he couldn’t help but flinch because, joke or not, she was right. She must have noticed his flinch, for she put her hand on his arm and added, “I’m kidding. I know I couldn’t get through this without you, and I don’t know who else I’d be willing to trust.”

“You do trust me?”

“I figure if you wanted to hurt me, you’d have left me in that dungeon in the first place.” Then she grinned and added, “Unless, of course, you want me for your own nefarious reasons. Say, you aren’t an agent of our enemy kingdom, are you?”

He couldn’t help but smile. “I can assure you I am not. And do you always jest about important matters?”

“All the time,” she assured him. “I guess you could call it my coping mechanism. If I weren’t making jokes, I’d be aware of how serious the situation is, and then I’d be freaking out. Would you prefer me to make a few wisecracks, or would you rather be stuck with a swooning damsel in distress?”

“Would the damsel in distress be quiet?”

As soon as he said it, he feared he’d gone too far and presumed too much to speak to a princess that way, but she laughed out loud. “Oh, no, definitely not. She’d be screaming her head off, and you wouldn’t dare stick a sock in a princess’s mouth to keep her quiet.”

“In that case, I will tolerate the joking.”

“You should do that more often,” she said.

“Do what, your highness?”

“Smile. It looks good on you. Are you usually so serious, or is it just this whole life-or-death mission thing?”

He looked away from her so she couldn’t see his eyes. “I can appreciate a good jest, but I’ve had precious little opportunity.”

“Well, stick with me, and I’ll keep you laughing,” she said, hooking her arm through his and giving his hand an encouraging squeeze.

He couldn’t resist turning back to look at her. “I shall hold you to that.” The legends said the Enchantresses had gifted her magically so that all would love her, and now he understood how that worked. It wasn’t so much that people were compelled toward her as that she had a gift for making people feel at ease and for making them laugh. Those qualities made her utterly irresistible.

“I see you escaped notice,” a gruff voice said, making both Sebastian and the princess jump. It was Larkin and Leila joining them, but Sebastian cursed himself inwardly. He’d allowed himself to be distracted by joking with the princess, and if it hadn’t been allies joining them, he might not have been able to protect her. The presence of the dogs was reassuring, though. Their senses were far keener than his, so they should be able to warn him of danger.

By late afternoon, when the dogs said they were nearing their destination, Sebastian decided that safety was more important than his disguise. When they stopped to rest, he took the bundle off his back, unwrapped the sword, and attached the scabbard to its rightful place on his belt. “You know how to use that thing?” the princess asked as she emptied pebbles from her shoes.

“I’ve spent my life training to use it,” he replied, trying not to sound like he was boasting. “I am to be knighted this winter on my eighteenth birthday. Or, I was to have been. Leaving my master’s employ so abruptly may change the situation.”

“Yeah, but you did it to save the kingdom, so yay for you. You’ll probably get knighted and get a medal. Because, hello, I think I outrank your master.”

He couldn’t hold back a smile as he helped her to her feet. She’d done it again. She’d managed to make him feel better about the situation. It was truly a rare gift that she had, and he was sorry that he soon would have to part from her, once he turned her over to the Loyalist leaders.

The sky was just starting to darken when they rounded a curve in the road and a smallish, rustic castle appeared ahead of them. “We are here,” Larkin announced. When they drew closer, Sebastian saw that the blue-edged handkerchief that signaled a Loyalist sympathizer hung in one of the narrow windows that overlooked the gate.

A pair of guards stood in the gateway. They came to attention as Sebastian and the princess approached, and one called out, “Long live the king!”

“And also his queen,” Sebastian responded.

“What is your business here?”

“I was told to come here. Sergeant Fulk sent me.”

The guard’s attitude changed completely. He grinned from ear to ear, and both he and his colleague gave the princess an appraising look. Sebastian wanted to chastise them for ogling her that way, but he knew this was neither the time nor the place. “We’ve been expecting you,” the guard said. “Come with me.” The guard led them across the courtyard to the house tucked against the back castle wall, where he banged on the door. “They’re here,” he called out.

A minute or two later, there was a sound like the door was being unbolted. It opened to show a gray-haired man with a stony, disapproving face. The princess edged closer to Sebastian.

“Ah, the Sinclair boy, and our lovely little princess with him. So, you did succeed,” the man said with a glare. “Well, what are you waiting for? Get inside.”

The inside of the house was dark, and it took a moment for Sebastian’s eyes to adjust to the dim light. There weren’t many windows, with the back of the hall being up against the castle wall, and the front windows were in shade at this time of day. There were torches on the walls and a fire in a hearth at the end of the hall. The shadows made it hard to tell how many people were there, but Sebastian guessed about ten. They were all sitting around a long dining table near the fire.

The men all stood and moved forward as Sebastian and the princess entered the hall. When they drew closer, Sebastian saw that Lord Argus, his master, led the group. Sebastian let himself relax. He hadn’t been certain if Lord Argus had remained at court as an agent of the Loyalists or if he served Melantha, since Sebastian had always received his orders on behalf of the Loyalists from Fulk, but Argus’s presence at the rendesvous meant he must be on the right side. Lord Argus must have ordered Fulk to give Sebastian the mission, which meant Sebastian hadn’t dishonorably abandoned his position. “Your highness, may I present my former master, Lord Argus,” Sebastian said.

But then someone else stepped out of the shadows—a woman. It was the witch Melantha, Sebastian realized with a sinking heart. They’d been betrayed, and he’d served a traitor. Without hesitation, he drew his sword and faced his master.

***

            The people who’d carried Dawn away hadn’t spoken the entire time, so she was trapped in eerie silence and darkness. She was fairly certain her aunts were involved. Who else here would have an interest in her? Her captors were fairly gentle with her, aside from keeping a bag over her head, and that kept her from being too frightened. If they meant her harm, they’d have actually harmed her.

Once the boat landed, there was a short walk, and then they sat her on the ground. She mentally prepared an explanation to give to her aunts as to why she’d gone away and was avoiding them, then someone yanked the bag off her head.

Instead of facing a group of women in black dresses with white collars, she saw a grubby group of men. “Oh!” she said in surprise. “But who are you?”

“We’re Bertram’s Bards, that’s who, you fool,” snarled one of the men, but another cuffed him in the back of the head.

“Be civil to our guest,” that man said. With a flourish and a bow, he added, “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Bertram the Bard, and these scoundrels are my troupe.”

“You’re professional performers?” Dawn asked. She’d never met a real professional musician before, aside from perhaps her choir teacher.

“That we are, miss.”

“Why did you kidnap me?”

“Kidnappin’s such an ugly word. Consider this a pre-emptive hirin’, if you please.”

“You want me to join your troupe?”

“That’d be the gist of it, yes. I heard ye singin’ in the marketplace, and I thought to meself, ‘Meself,’ I says, ‘Yon lady would sure to be our ticket to perform at the coronation, and that would be our ticket to fame and fortune.’ And so, we snatched you up before any of those other groups could get to ye.”

“The coronation? At the castle?” Aside from the fact that she’d been kidnapped, Dawn could scarcely believe her good fortune. Now she wouldn’t have to worry about buying passage downriver. If only Jeremy were there, but at least he had the money she’d earned already, and perhaps she could send one of the men to find him.

“That indeed, miss.”

“Then we’d better start practicing. We’ll need to work me into your act, and I have some songs I want to teach you. Who’s your best baritone?”

The men all looked at each other. “Baritone?” Bertram asked.

“Oh, perhaps it’s different here. I suppose some of you play instruments, but the others must sing, right?” They looked at each other again and then nodded. “When you sing harmony, some of you must sing the high parts, and some the low parts, and then there would be some in between.” They still seemed confused, so she said, “Maybe it would be easiest if you performed for me, and then I can decide better what we should do. Go on, play something for me.”

One of the men took a battered mandolin out of a sack, and another had a drum. A third man had a tin whistle. The one with the whistle played a note, then the one with the mandolin began strumming. Bertram and another man joined in, singing what Dawn soon realized was a very bawdy song. She felt her face growing warm just listening to it. “No more, please!” she cried out. “Don’t you have any nicer songs? I can’t sing something like that.”

They started another song, and she soon realized that they were hopelessly out of tune. The whistle and the mandolin were playing in entirely different keys, and the singers didn’t even seem to be listening to the accompaniment. “Oh, this won’t do at all!” she cried out when they finished the song. It would take a miracle for this group to get invited to perform anywhere, let alone at a coronation. Bertram had a decent voice, but a tin ear. The others had great enthusiasm without much talent. She suspected they could only make money because their lyrics were so naughty.

“What’s wrong, miss?” Bertram asked.

“I don’t know where to begin. Perhaps we could start by picking a key. You, play a chord,” she instructed the mandolin player. He obliged, then she told the whistle to play a note. That note wasn’t anywhere in the chord, so she made him go up the scale until he hit a note that fit. All the men grinned like it was a great revelation. “See, doesn’t that sound better?” she asked. “Now, let’s try singing something that fits.” She taught them a simple song the choir teacher used as a warm-up, and soon she had them almost sounding like a group. After at least an hour of practice, they had one song worth performing.

“Takin’ you may have been the best decision I ever made, miss,” Bertram said with a grin. “But it’s time to rest and eat. We’ll need to head back to town soon enough to find a tavern for performing tonight.”

“A short break, maybe. We don’t want to strain our voices. We can focus on image while we rest.”

“Image?”

“Well, look at yourselves. You’re rough and filthy, no offense. But would you invite yourselves into a castle, honestly?”

They looked each other up and down, and Bertram said sheepishly, “No, perhaps not.”

“You’ll all need baths and a shave and some clean clothes. I wish my friend Lucy were here. She could design us some nice costumes so we would really look like a group.”

They didn’t seem very enthusiastic about that, but she assumed they were just tired. They also didn’t want to get back to work when they finished their meal, insisting on passing a wineskin around their circle. She tried teaching Bertram one of her favorite musical theater duets, but he wasn’t very interested, and the drunker he got, the less interested he became. Soon, all the men had fallen asleep, and it was only the middle of the afternoon. She supposed they must be in the habit of napping during the day if they performed late at night.

After a few minutes of watching them sleep, she realized that they’d left her entirely unguarded. She wouldn’t have minded staying with them if they could have helped her reach her goal, but quite clearly that was never going to happen. She’d have to find something else. Maybe another troupe with actual musical skill would take her on.

Moving as quietly as she could, she picked up her backpack and tiptoed away from the group. She froze and held her breath when one of the men rolled over, but he went right back to sleep. Soon, she was deep into the woods and well away from them. The only problem was, she had no idea where she was or which direction she should go. Having her head covered while they brought her there meant she didn’t know how to get back. She reassured herself that the animals in this world were friendly, and some could even talk to humans, so she was sure to find someone who could guide her at least to the river, if not all the way back to the town. She might even be able to find a bird willing to go to the town and find Jeremy for her. The animals being so drawn to her at home could sometimes be annoying, but here it was actually rather useful.

However, this area of the forest didn’t seem to have any animals in it. No squirrels scampered from tree branch to tree branch, no rabbits hopped through the undergrowth, and no birds sang overhead. There was nobody to offer her directions. Absently rubbing her itchy finger against her pants leg, she realized that she still felt that strong tug that had brought her through the portal and to the river. If she followed that tug, she could find the river again and follow it upstream to the town where Jeremy was.

Having a plan made her feel so much better. She closed her eyes and waited for the pulling sensation, let herself sway in that direction and took a step forward. Once she knew the right direction, she opened her eyes and headed out.

She hadn’t walked long before she came to a clearing. In the middle of the clearing was a little cottage. There was something odd, and yet familiar, about it. It reminded her of Christmas, for some reason, and then she remembered that she and Lucy had once tried to make a gingerbread house. The picture on the kit had looked much like this. The house they’d made had turned out to be something else entirely, but they’d had a good time.

Anyone who lived in a house like that had to be of a festive or whimsical spirit, and perhaps they could give her directions. She went up the front walk, which was lined by what looked like large lollipops, and knocked on the front door.

An old woman, stooped so she was bent almost double over her walking cane, opened the door, squinted at her, and smiled a toothless smile. “Why, good day, young miss,” she said. “What can I do for you?”

“I got lost in the woods when some men took me away from the town—that’s a long story, but I got away from them. Now I was hoping you might be able to point me to the river or the quickest route to the town. I think I know the general direction, but I thought it might be easier to ask for help.”

“Oh, I can certainly direct you to town, but you don’t want to go there now. It will be dark soon enough, and these woods are no place for a young lady like yourself to be alone after dark.”

“Is it nearly dark? It’s hard to tell in the forest, and I must have lost track of time.” Dawn was fairly sure the animals wouldn’t harm her, but she didn’t want to run into Bertram and his men again. They might not be happy with her leaving their troupe so abruptly.

“You are welcome to stay the night with me, young miss. I get terribly lonely alone in the woods, and few ever come to visit me. We’ll have a nice dinner and a good night’s rest, and tomorrow you’ll be ready to travel.”

Dawn hesitated. Jeremy was sure to be worried. But she also didn’t like the idea of being alone in the woods at night. This seemed like a nice enough lady and, after all, she lived in a cottage that looked like a gingerbread house. Dawn couldn’t imagine that a truly wicked person would have a house like this. “I would appreciate your hospitality. I can help with the cooking, or do the dishes after dinner.”

“Oh, no need of that. You’ll be my guest.” The woman ushered her inside and made her take a seat at a small wooden table. “I hope you’re hungry. You look like you could use a little more flesh on those bones.” She dished up a thick stew, with a slab of bread smeared on both sides with butter alongside it. “Be sure to save room for dessert,” the woman added with a grin.

While she ate, Dawn studied her surroundings. The cottage was simple, but it was decorated with whimsical candy-land touches that went with the outside of the house—stained-glass windows that looked like they were made of hard candy, support pillars on either side of the fireplace that looked like peppermint sticks, and an ottoman in front of a rocking chair that looked just like a giant gumdrop. The only thing that didn’t fit was the large cage at the back of the room.

“What kind of pet do you have?” Dawn asked with a gesture toward the cage.

The woman looked up sharply from slicing a cake. “Pet?” she asked.

“Well, you’ve got a cage …”

The woman gave a cackling laugh. “Oh, that’s not a cage. It’s the best I could do to create a guest room. You see, I sleep in the bed over there, and when I have company, they don’t always want to share a room. I throw a blanket over that frame, and there’s a guest room with privacy.”

“That’s a very clever idea.” Dawn wasn’t sure she believed the woman, even if it was uncharitable of her to distrust her hostess. A lattice framework over the top should be enough to support a blanket to create a tent-like room. It wouldn’t need bars on the sides or a door. If the woman had talked about having a big dog that needed a kennel, she’d have believed that, but explaining away a cage as a guest room? That made even Dawn suspicious, and Lucy always said she was too trusting.

The old woman insisted on her taking second helpings of dessert and tried to give her some candy after that, but Dawn insisted she couldn’t eat another bite. “I’d be happy to help you clean up,” she said. “I feel bad dropping in and eating your food.”

“Oh, never you mind about that, young miss. As I said, I’m glad of the company. You should just go to sleep in my nice little guest room. I’m sure you could use the rest.”

Dawn most certainly did not want to go into that cage. She needed to delay that as long as possible. Her aunts usually went to sleep before she did, so perhaps if she stalled long enough, this woman would drift off. “But I feel like I should repay you,” she said. “I know! I can sing for you.”

“Sing for me?” the woman asked, a hint of suspicion in her voice.

“Everyone says I have a lovely voice. Back home, my aunts make me sing to them while they go about their work. I’m going to be a professional singer someday.”

“I suppose a song or two wouldn’t hurt.” The woman settled into her rocking chair and put her feet up on that gumdrop ottoman.

Dawn dredged up every slow, sad song in her repertoire and sang as if her life depended on it because she was afraid it did.

Continued in Chapter 10

Here’s the next chapter in my ongoing serial story. You can find chapter one here and the previous chapter here.

Chapter Eight

            There was a shout from the other side of the market square, and the three aunts ran toward Dawn and Jeremy. “I can’t let them catch me!” Dawn cried.

“They may not be bad,” he argued. “They may be trying to help.”

“But I’m not ready to go back.”

She’d hoped to blend into the crowd, but her audience scattered as soon as they saw the black-clad women. That made her sure that the enchantresses were to be feared. The sour-faced woman who’d loudly criticized Dawn looked both angry and afraid. When the enchantresses came near her, she shoved over a stall, sending piles of fruit crashing down to block the aisle between her and the enchantresses, then she ran the other direction. Before the fruit hit the ground, it floated up and back onto the stall, which had righted itself.

Dawn almost forgot to take advantage of the distraction and run away. Had her aunts always been able to do that?

“Dawn!” Two voices called her name simultaneously, Jeremy on one side and Mariel on the other. She ran to Jeremy.

He pulled her into a butcher’s stall, where they hid behind the counter. It was difficult crouching on the bloody ground without actually touching the ground any more than was absolutely necessary. The sound of commotion neared the stall, and they darted out again.

By this time, the chase and the activity of all those enchantresses had caused a general panic in the market. Merchants were shutting up booths or hiding, while shoppers ran in every direction. The rest of the enchantresses had got into the search, and it was hard to tell them apart while running.

Dawn and Jeremy ran to the end of an aisle, a trio of enchantresses hot on their heels, only to round the corner and find themselves face-to-face with another trio. “Are they multiplying?” Jeremy muttered, then cried out, “This way!” and dashed between two booths. Dawn ran after him, and the two groups of women clogged the narrow gap between booths as they all tried to rush through at the same time.

A tug on Dawn’s shirt yanked her backward. She thought one of the enchantresses had caught her, but it turned out to be a merchant. “I’ve got her, my ladies!” he called to the enchantresses while Dawn struggled to escape his grasp. Something flew through the air over Dawn’s head, there was a loud “Ow!” from behind her, and she was suddenly free.

“Run, love, go on, get away!” a woman at a nearby booth urged as she hefted a green apple in her hand. Dawn immediately ran to catch up with Jeremy as the woman threw the apple at Dawn’s former captor.

Around the next corner, Dawn and Jeremy found themselves at a baker’s booth. Behind the booth were several large baskets. “Get in!” Jeremy cried out, and they both jumped into baskets, pulling the cloth coverings over themselves.

Hidden that way, Dawn couldn’t tell what was happening in the market, but from the sound of things, the search continued. There were pops and mild explosions, shouts, and the patter of frantic footsteps. She heard a familiar voice say, “She was just here. But where did she go?” It was Mariel.

“The bigger question is where is she planning to go,” Miriam said.

“She’s going after her friend, obviously,” Matilda said.

“But how does she know where to go?” Mariel asked.

“She’s a smart girl,” Matilda said. “And she is sixteen now. Perhaps she’s started to get a sense of who she really is. This is her world, after all.”

“I don’t see them anywhere,” Miriam said. “It looked like she was with that boy, so she’s not here alone. I don’t think they can have gone too far.”

They continued talking, their voices growing fainter. Gradually, the noise in the marketplace died down. Someone pulled aside the cloth over Dawn’s basket. She ducked, but then recognized Jeremy standing over her. “I think the coast is clear,” he said.

She crawled out of the basket. Jeremy’s face, hair, and clothes were streaked with flour, and she was sure she looked just as bad. “Did you hear what they said?”

“Yeah, they’re still going to look for you, so come on.”

“Not just that—they said this is my world.”

“I thought you’d figured that out already.”

The baker noticed them and shouted at them for being in his baskets. Other merchants began to move toward them from around the marketplace, and they didn’t look happy. “How are you going to pay for the damaged goods?” one asked.

Dawn looked to Jeremy to see if he had a plan. “Run!” he shouted. The two of them took off down the aisle, a mob of angry merchants behind them. They both ran, harder than ever, for a side street leading away from the marketplace.

Jeremy wove in and out of alleys, then dove behind a cart, calling for Dawn to follow him. They crouched there, wedged between the cart and a stone wall, until the merchants ran past. They eased their way out of their hiding place and went back the way the merchants had come. Instead of running, they moved slowly and cautiously, Jeremy leading the way and making sure it was safe before they went farther. He motioned for Dawn to stay put while he ducked around a corner, and while she waited for him to return, someone grabbed her, something went over her head, and everything went dark.

***

            Lucy was afraid she’d faint from anxiety when a guard stopped the wagon. “Where have you come from?” the guard asked the woman driving the wagon.

“The woodcutter’s hut in the forest, good sir.”

“What are you carrying?”

“Wood, of course. I’m late getting to market this morning because I had to tend to a sick horse.”

“Have you seen a boy and a girl in the woods?”

Lucy suddenly had an almost irresistible urge to intone, “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for,” but she bit her lip before she could giggle at the thought. It would have been nice if the woman had a few Jedi mind tricks up her sleeve, but Lucy was willing to settle for her being a good liar.

“I haven’t seen a soul other than my husband in days,” the woman said with a sigh. “Even you’re a sight for sore eyes.”

The guard laughed and apparently waved her on because the wagon started moving again. Soon, the noise level outside the wagon increased, along with the smell. This world might not smell as bad as she’d expect a real medieval place to, Lucy thought, but it was still pretty obvious that there were a lot of horses around.

The wagon stopped again in a slightly quieter spot, and the layer of wood above Lucy’s head was shoved aside. She sat up and stretched her cramped muscles as Sebastian did the same, then he jumped out of the wagon and helped her out. “Thank you so much,” Lucy said to the woman. “You’re a lifesaver.” On impulse, she stood on tiptoes and kissed the woman’s cheek. Tears sprang to the woman’s eyes, and Lucy felt her own eyes watering at the idea she could have such a strong impact on someone else.

She and Sebastian shouldered their respective packs and moved to the edge of the alley as the woman drove her cart out the other way. When the crowd on the street outside the alley grew thicker, they left the alley and let themselves blend in.

It was a market day in the village, so there were plenty of people serving as cover. It looked like the social event of the week, with people from the surrounding countryside catching up with their friends. The village itself was even smaller than her home town, but with a market square in the middle and a haphazard cluster of buildings around it.

There were also a lot of black-clad soldiers in the village, scanning the crowd. The hiss of breath from next to her told her Sebastian had also noticed them. She elbowed him in the ribs. “Relax. There’s nothing about us that stands out in the crowd. All we have to do is blend in.”

She studied the other people in the marketplace for a moment, then reached over and put Sebastian’s arm around her shoulders and snuggled up against him. “What?” he blurted.

Keeping her voice low, she said, “They’re looking for a princess and a squire whose mission is to keep her safe, right?”

“Exactly.” He tried to move his arm, but she reached up and held his hand.

“So, they’d never imagine that the squire would dare get so familiar with a princess, or that she’d let him. Therefore, if we act all inappropriate, then obviously we can’t be the people they’re looking for. And don’t worry, I won’t have you beheaded for getting overly familiar with me. In fact, I’m making it a royal order.”

He stopped trying to move his arm and even settled it more comfortably around her. She tried to channel the popular girls at school who engaged in PDA in the halls between classes as she thought of how a girlfriend might act with her boyfriend. She leaned her head against his shoulder and wondered if he’d drop dead of a heart attack if she put her arm around his waist.

Even though it wasn’t exactly her idea of fun to walk right past all those soldiers who were looking for her, it also wasn’t exactly torture to do it this way. She’d never had a boyfriend, so she’d never had a boy’s arm around her like this before, and it felt really nice. She felt safe and protected.

Sebastian surprised her by giving her shoulder a squeeze. “I think it’s working,” he whispered in her ear. “They aren’t giving us a second look.”

She faked a girlish giggle, as though he’d just whispered a sweet nothing. “See, I told you. Now we need to get the rest of the way through the marketplace and out of the village. Do you have any money on you?”

“I have some coins. Why?”

“Because it would look kind of silly for us to go to the village on market day and not buy anything. It’ll probably be easier for us to get past any guards on our way out if we’ve bought something.”

“You are very good at subterfuge.”

“It comes from having seen every spy movie ever made, thanks to my friend Jeremy.” She smiled at the thought of telling Jeremy how she pulled this off.

Sebastian bought a loaf of bread and a hunk of cheese. Once he had his purchases stowed in his pack, he put his arm back around Lucy and they headed toward the road out of town. There were more guards on the road, standing where they could scan the crowds as they entered and left the village. Lucy felt their eyes on her, even as she tried to tell herself that their cover was good. She noticed a guard staring at her, and she moistened her lips and winked at him as she held eye contact with him for a long moment. Surely he’d assume that a fugitive princess would never draw attention to herself that way.

It must have worked, for he made no move to stop them. Sebastian quickened his pace so they fell in with a knot of people leaving the village with baskets of goods. Lucy held her breath as they approached the edge of the village, where there were even more guards watching the road. She tried her best not to look nervous, even though her heart pounded in her chest. Sebastian had her shoulder in a death grip, and she could feel the tension in his body.

But the guards didn’t stop them. It had worked! She forced herself to keep walking and not show any sign of celebrating while they were still in sight. Only when they’d rounded a bend and gone down a hill so that the village was no longer visible did she turn and throw her arms around Sebastian’s neck.

“We did it!” she cried out. He surprised her by spinning her around in triumph, but then he remembered himself, put her down, and stepped away.

“That was a very good plan, your highness,” he said with a bow. “I am more used to a direct fight. I confess I’m not so comfortable with sneaking around.”

“You did fine. Now we just need the dogs to join us and lead us to that rendezvous.”

***

            Jeremy came back to tell Dawn the coast was clear, but she was gone. He looked up and down the alley, but saw only a group of men carrying a bundle toward the docks. “Dawn?” he called out softly, but there was no response. He retraced their steps, glancing down each side street. She’d vanished into thin air. Normally, he’d consider that to be hyperbole, but in a place where portals could take people to other worlds and animals talked, he wasn’t so sure it hadn’t happened literally. He had no idea what the aunts and their gang could do.

He turned slowly back to where he’d seen that group of men. Unless … It might not have been magic at all, just a garden-variety kidnapping. He sprinted down the alley and came out onto the docks just in time to see a small boat pulling away into the current and heading downstream. He didn’t see Dawn with them, but she could have been the bundle they’d been carrying. Or he could be imagining things and the enchantresses really had zapped her away.

“She was supposed to go to the river!” a voice chirped overhead.

He stifled a groan. “Where were you in all the excitement?” he asked Spink.

“I was afraid of the ladies in black, so I hid. They might try to stop me.”

“Well, you were a lot of help. Did you see what happened to Dawn?”

“Dawn?”

“The girl from far, far away.”

“I hid. But I found you. Where is the girl from far, far away? She was supposed to go to the castle.”

Clearly the bird would be of little help, and he wasn’t sure who else in this crazy place might be. The marketplace was probably a bad idea, unless he wanted to be captured by a merchant and turned into an indentured servant to pay off the damages from the chase. The boat that might or might not be carrying a kidnapped Dawn was heading rapidly downstream. He pondered the idea of jumping onto one of the other moored boats and shouting, “Follow that boat!” but he couldn’t imagine that being very effective. He’d probably get thrown overboard.

“Did you lose your pretty friend?”

He spun to see a group of colorfully dressed people. Among them was the girl who’d heckled Dawn’s performance. At the head of the group was an older man with a bushy mustache on a face that looked like it had been carved out of a tree.

“We got separated,” Jeremy said. “Did you see her?”

“If you think she’s in yon boat” —the man gestured with his chin— “I’d know who has her. That would be Bertram and his gang. They know they don’t stand a chance of performing at the coronation without a little help, and your friend does have a lovely voice.”

“What, she got kidnapped to be part of a band?”

The man shrugged. “I’ll wager that every performer in the marketplace was planning to offer her a place in his troupe. Bertram wouldn’t be able to pay, so he resorted to kidnapping. But don’t worry, they won’t get far, not in that boat. They’ll have to put in for the evening.”

“Could you help me find her?”

“And what would be in it for us?”

“Well, you’d get her in your troupe, and you wouldn’t even have to pay, she’d be so grateful for being rescued.” In fact, he had a feeling that between being given transportation to the castle and a chance to perform in front of an audience, Dawn might be willing to pay them.

“We don’t need the likes of her in our troupe,” the sour-faced girl said. “We do fine on our own.”

“Hush, Rhian,” the man said, then added with a wink, “my daughter, and she’s just like her mother, may she rest peacefully. Needless to say, she’s not the one of us with a sweet voice. But she is right that we don’t need an extra member. I wasn’t planning to make an offer. I simply enjoy hearing good music when I come across it.”

“We do have the bird as part of the act,” Jeremy said, his desperation rising. “And I could make myself useful on your boat. I’m a hard worker, and I have a lot of skills.” The man didn’t look like that impressed him, so Jeremy thought frantically of anything that might tip the balance. If this group wouldn’t help, he might have to resort to going to the aunts, and Dawn would never forgive him for that.

He tried to think of something he had that he might be able to trade. His backpack was full of modern American necessities. Then he recalled something from history class. If this world was anything like his world, the people of medieval Europe wouldn’t ever have experienced chocolate. “I do have this,” he said, pulling a small bag of M&Ms out of his backpack. He opened it, ate one himself, then passed it around the group. “Try one.” Each person took a piece of candy, and they all went wide-eyed as soon as they ate it. “And I have more treats like this to share.”

“He comes with us. We will help him find his friend,” Rhian said instantly, licking her lips.

The man chuckled. “It looks like we will help you, and you’ll be part of our crew then.” He held out a hand. “I’m Huw.”

Jeremy shook his hand. “I’m Jeremy, this is Spink, and my missing friend is Dawn. Thank you for your help. You won’t regret it.” Jeremy sincerely hoped he hadn’t sold Dawn down the river—literally—but he didn’t stand a chance of finding her without help, and as much as he’d urged Dawn to talk to her aunts, he didn’t look forward to facing them himself after losing her.

Huw led him to their boat, which looked like a floating stage, with a long, flat middle deck and two higher decks on either end. A framework on the middle deck looked like it was in the right position to hold a stage curtain and a rear curtain, and there were footlights along the side railing. Jeremy had heard of showboats where traveling performers played in a theater on a boat, but this boat would likely pull up along a riverbank and play to an audience on the bank. A sign on the side of the boat announced The North Country Minstrels, with the name of the group painted in flowing script, surrounded by smaller paintings of various musical instruments.

Huw gathered a group of men, and they and Jeremy set off in a dinghy, rowing downriver to move faster than the current. He just hoped it was fast enough to catch up with the people who’d taken Dawn.

Continued in Chapter Nine.

Here’s the next chapter in the ongoing serial story. You can find part one here and the previous part here. I just realized this weekend while watching The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe that I’ve written a portal fantasy with a heroine named Lucy. It really wasn’t meant as an homage to the Narnia books. I just happen to like the name “Lucy.” It seems like a good fit for a girl-next-door type from a small town, and I had a great aunt named Lucy. I also named Katie’s niece in the Enchanted, Inc. books Lucy.

Chapter Seven

            The animals scattered, and Dawn turned to see a big, gray wolf running its tongue across its fangs.

“Oh!” Dawn cried out, backing up. Next to her, Jeremy picked up a tree branch and brandished it like a sword.

The wolf just leered at Dawn. “Now, where did you come from, little girl?” he asked.

“She came from far, far away,” Spink chirped, flying loops in the air over the wolf. The wolf reared on his hind legs and swatted the bird with one paw. Without thinking, Dawn dove forward and picked up the bird before the wolf could pounce on it.

“Bad wolf!” she shouted.

“Yes, I am,” he replied in a voice that was almost a purr. “I see my reputation precedes me.” He stalked around Dawn, but never came close to her. In her palm, Spink trembled. Jeremy stood by with his tree branch.

“Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” Dawn scolded the wolf.

“You are my size,” he replied.

“But you aren’t going after me. You’re going after this little bird, you big meanie.”

The wolf stopped pacing and stared at her. “You’re right. Why is that?” Dawn held her breath, realizing she’d practically invited him to attack her. He cocked his head to one side and asked, “Who are you? What are you, that I can’t bring myself to bite you?” His tail began wagging, and he whirled in horror. “No! What sorcery is this?” He turned and ran away, back into the depths of the forest.

“Not by the hair of my chinny chin-chin,” Jeremy muttered.

“What?” Dawn asked.

“I believe that may have been the Big, Bad Wolf. But is he the one who goes after girls in red capes or the one who demolishes pigs’ houses?”

“What are you talking about?”

“They’re fairy tales. Didn’t your aunts ever read to you or tell you stories about Little Red Riding Hood or the Three Little Pigs?”

“No, I don’t think so. But what does that have to do with this?”

“Well, we’re in a place where animals talk, which is something that happens in stories. And that wolf was right out of a story. I’m just saying, it’s something to think about.”

“Don’t be silly, Jeremy.” She turned her attention to the quivering bird in her palm. “Are you all right, Spink?”

“The wolf is gone?”

“Yes, I believe he’s gone. Can you lead us to the river?”

He took flight again. “This way!”

“And remember, we don’t have wings,” Jeremy reminded him as they went after him.

They soon learned that following a bird was a real challenge. It had no concept of walking and easily flew over obstacles that stopped or slowed the humans. Almost immediately, it crossed a deep gulley that probably held a stream during rainy times. Dawn and Jeremy had to carefully pick their way down the steep slope and crawl up the opposite slope. By the time they reached the top, the bird was nowhere to be seen. “Good riddance,” Jeremy muttered, but Dawn worried about losing their guide.

They came to a road after about a half hour of walking, and it wasn’t long before a walled town came into view. The closer they came to the town, the more crowded the road became. No one was guarding the gate into the town, which was good, since Dawn didn’t have a passport, and she didn’t think it would do much good here. “Well, we’re here,” Jeremy said when they entered the town. “Now what?”

“We find out the situation, of course.” They followed the crowd from the road to the market square. It looked a lot like the farmers’ market back home, except with more live animals. “The market should be a good place to ask questions,” Dawn said. “People will be here from all around.”

“What question do you intend to ask? I mean, are you just going to walk up to someone and ask where the castle is?”

“Why not? We are from far away, after all. That seems like something strangers might ask.” Before Jeremy could argue, Dawn walked up to the nearest stall, where a bored-looking young man sat staring into space. “Excuse me,” she said, “but we’re strangers here, and I was wondering if you could help me.” She gave him her best smile, and he immediately perked up.

“How might I be of service?” he asked.

“Do you know where we might find the castle?”

“There’s no castle near this town, not unless you count the enchantresses’ abbey.”

“But isn’t there a castle on the river?”

“You mean the castle where the king and queen were? That’s several days downriver. I suppose you came for the coronation.”

Dawn was about to ask about the coronation when Jeremy stepped in and said, “Of course. We wouldn’t want to miss it. We came from very far away to see it. Thank you for your help.” He took Dawn’s arm and steered her away.

“I was going to ask him more questions,” she protested. “He was very helpful.”

“Yeah, I know he was, but us coming here for the coronation is a perfect cover story, and we don’t want to blow our chance to say we’ve come for the coronation by asking what coronation they’re talking about. Now, don’t you think it’s an interesting coincidence that there happens to be a coronation going on at the castle some bird was ordered to bring you to, right at the time someone kidnaps Lucy?”

“But what connection could there be?”

“Maybe we should ask your aunts.” Without waiting for her to reply, he took her arm and led her out of the market, back toward the town gate.

She didn’t have a logical answer, but the moment they started moving away, she felt that tug again, the one that had drawn her through the portal. Now it pulled her in another direction, away from where they were walking. “No!” she said, a little more loudly and forcefully than she intended. “This feels wrong.” Pulling her arm out of Jeremy’s grasp, she turned and let herself walk in the direction of the tug.

He came after her. “What’s going on with you?”

She wasn’t sure she could explain, not in words. “I feel like we need to go this way.”

“What makes you think so?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I just feel it. Maybe I’m connected to my necklace that Lucy’s wearing, and I’m drawn to that.”

He raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You’ve got a magical link? Really?”

She put her hands on her hips and looked up at him. “We got here by walking through a portal in my garden shed, and the animals talk here. Is my being able to feel my necklace any weirder than that?”

He held up his hands in mock surrender. “Okay, okay. So, where does your magical Spidey sense tell you to go?”

“I’m leading you there. Now, come on.”

She chose one of the side streets leading away from the market square in the opposite direction from the gate. Soon the smell of the area changed, taking on a damp, mildewed scent. They were approaching water: the river. Sure enough, the street led to the riverside wharf, where rows of boats were tied up.

“There you are!” a familiar voice said. Spink sat on a railing. “I knew you’d find the river.”

Jeremy groaned under his breath, but Dawn couldn’t help smiling. “It’s good to see you, Spink. But if you want us to follow you, you need to remember to wait for us.”

“The castle’s on the river,” the bird said.

“Yes, we know,” Dawn replied. “We understand it’s a few days downriver. So I guess we need to find a boat going downriver.”

“How?” Jeremy asked. “We don’t have money to buy passage. Somehow, I doubt they take dollars, and I don’t think even American Express has a currency exchange here.”

“We earn the money,” she said simply, leading him back to the market square.

“And how do you intend to do that?”

“I’m going to sing. I don’t suppose you have a hat or some other kind of container to collect money.”

He pulled his Scout cap out of his backpack and put it on the ground in front of her, and she tried to think of something to sing. She settled on one of her favorite solos from The Phantom of the Opera. It was nice and showy, with plenty of high notes and a bit of ornamentation at the end. Back home, it was considered a clichéd audition song, but here, no one would have ever heard it. She hoped they’d be impressed.

While she sang, she tried to watch the reaction of the people in the marketplace without losing her concentration. Some of the shoppers stopped to turn and listen. Others only paused before going back to what they’d been doing. At the end of the first song, a couple of people tossed coins into Jeremy’s hat. He picked up the hat and waded into the crowd. “Surely that was worth a little something,” he said. “Have you ever heard anyone sing like that?”

She launched into another song, and Spink landed on her shoulder and joined her, singing a descant in counterpoint to her melody. That brought more people over to listen and put more coins into Jeremy’s hat. After a couple more songs, she took a break to sip some of the bottled water Jeremy had brought.

“I think we’re doing pretty well,” he said, “though I don’t know what these coins are worth. For all I know, we’ve got enough for a cup of coffee—and the non-Starbucks kind, at that. But it does seem to be working.”

That gave her more energy to sing even better. She’d sung solos in the school choir and had played roles in musicals that gave her solo numbers, but she’d never had a solo performance—though she supposed it wasn’t a true solo with Spink there, unless he would be considered an accompanist. Whether or not she earned enough money for passage downriver to the capital, she was having the time of her life. The crowds around her grew, and they were an appreciative audience, aside from one sour-faced young woman who stood near the back.

“Ah, she’s nothing special,” the woman called out in the middle of a song. “Just another little songbird, and I’m not talking about the one with wings.” A few others in the audience laughed, but the rest turned to glare while those nearest the woman shushed her. Dawn forced herself to ignore the distraction and keep singing.

She got so caught up in her music and in the response from the people closest to her that she lost track of the rest of the marketplace until Jeremy tapped her on the shoulder between songs.

“Don’t make any sudden moves,” he whispered, “but look over there.”

She looked beyond the audience gathered around her and saw that a group of women in black dresses with white collars had entered the marketplace. The one in front made eye contact with Dawn and headed right for her. Her aunts had found her!

***

            Both Sebastian and their hostess looked at Lucy like she was insane for saying that she and Sebastian shouldn’t be the ones to travel. “But, your highness, you have to be the one to arrive at the rendezvous,” Sebastian said.

“I know that,” she said, trying not to snap. “But we don’t need to be the ones they see along the way.” He still looked blank. Then it occurred to her that he’d probably never gone on the run before, and he’d certainly never seen a movie about going on the run, so he probably had no idea that people who went on the run had to change their appearance to get past their pursuers. But if he hadn’t heard of that idea, then their enemies hadn’t, either, and that might give her an advantage. “They’re looking specifically for us, right? I mean, since you went missing at the same time I escaped, I’m pretty sure they’ve figured out that you’re the guy who let me go, and those soldiers were looking for a guy and a girl.”

“Yes, I’m sure they know to look for me.”

“Then look at us! You’re wearing livery, for crying out loud. You might as well be wearing your name on your back in giant letters. And I’m pretty sure there’s no one around here dressed like I am. You could spot us a mile away. But there are only a few people who’ve actually seen my face. I don’t know how well-known you are, but I bet that if I changed clothes and did something different with my hair, I could walk right past almost anyone searching for me without them knowing.” That was another benefit to this world being so backward: There weren’t any photos of her to distribute and no television or computer networks for distributing them. The searchers would have to go by vague descriptions, and the general public would know nothing at all. Based on what she’d seen so far, Lucy doubted most of the people would join in the search for the escaped princess.

Apparently, Sebastian caught on, for he immediately unfastened his belt and pulled his surcoat off over his head. “Do you still recognize me, your highness?” he asked with a smile.

“I might be able to pick you out of a lineup. But then, I know you pretty well.” She turned to their hostess. “I don’t suppose you have any old clothes you could lend us. Well, give us, since I doubt we’d be able to get them back to you, but if I live through this, I promise to pay you back.” She might not be able to live up to that promise, since she wasn’t the real princess, but she knew Dawn would be willing to carry it out.

“But of course, your highness. I still have some of my daughter’s old clothes, from when she was a girl, and I believe I have an old tunic of my husband’s that would fit you, sir. It is my humble duty as your loyal subject to give you anything you ask.” With several bows, she backed away to a chest at the side of the room. Lucy was really uncomfortable with all this groveling. She imagined this must be what might happen if Prince William dropped in on a random home in England, only without the paparazzi. And if the prince asked to borrow a pair of jeans.

Lucy found herself ridiculously excited as the woman brought out a carefully folded bundle of clothes. As dire as her circumstances were, costumes were sure to make everything better. This would be her chance to wear authentic medieval clothing. The woman handed Sebastian a roughly woven tunic and Lucy a larger bundle of clothes. He looked at Lucy, ducked his head, and said, “I will change outside.”

As soon as he was gone, she eagerly unfolded the bundle. The outfit was peasant garb—a long, loose light dress with tight sleeves and a heavier overdress that went on top of it. It was hard to judge the time period from the design—probably no later than Fourteenth Century, though with peasant clothing, it was hard to tell. And there was no guarantee that their time periods matched Lucy’s world. The design looked more like something from a storybook than like authentic period attire.

Come to think of it, a lot about this place—and not just the talking animals and the evil witch—was very storybook. For one thing, everyone spoke English, and in that vague British-like accent they tended to use for all Europeans in movies. Or else being Narniaed had done something to Lucy’s brain so she understood them if they weren’t speaking English. Things didn’t smell nearly as bad as she’d have thought they would in a real medieval setting, and Sebastian was not only tall, but he also had white, healthy teeth, which didn’t fit with what they’d taught in history class about that time period. Was she really in another world that was the source for the fairy tales she knew, or had she literally been carried into a storybook? It might not be such a bad thing if she had. In stories, good usually beat evil, and the heroine lived happily ever after. The real world wasn’t always so kind.

Lucy was normally a stickler for accuracy in costuming, and she complained enough about anachronisms in movies and television shows to make Jeremy groan, but after touching the dress, she decided it wouldn’t matter if she kept on her underwear. The fabric was awfully rough against her skin, and it wasn’t as though anyone would be seeing her bra and panties to notice anything unusual. Besides, the dress fit better with the help of a little padding in the chest area. She told herself it was important that people see the princess as beautiful, but if she was perfectly honest, she’d have to admit that she was more concerned with what Sebastian thought about her.

The bundle didn’t include any shoes, but the dress was a little long on her and covered her feet, and she didn’t think her ballet flats were too out of place, aside from being pink, which really clashed with the dark green dress. She stuffed her old clothes into her backpack. It wasn’t exactly period, being made of rip-proof nylon and covered with zippers, but at least it was a plain dark blue instead of something like Hello Kitty.

The witch and her people had only seen Lucy with her hair up in a ponytail, so she pulled off the ponytail holder and ran her fingers through her hair to loosen it so it fell around her face. It was hopelessly frizzed, but this was a world without conditioner and hair gel, so she suspected almost everyone with curly hair would look like that.

“I would never recognize you, your highness,” the woman said.

“Then this may work.” Lucy went outside to find Sebastian wearing a tunic that was a bit too big for him across the shoulders, which had the effect of making him look skinnier than he was, like a boy wearing his father’s clothes. This was the first chance she’d had to get a good look at him in decent lighting. It was hard to guess his exact age, since his life was probably pretty different from what she was used to, but he seemed younger than he had the night before. He had only the slightest hint of patchy fuzz growing on his jaw, and it would probably take him a few more days without shaving to develop a respectable five-o’clock shadow. The lines and planes of the face he’d grow into when he was older had been what showed in the firelight the night before, but in daylight there was still a bit of youthful softness blurring his features. A sprinkling of freckles across his nose and cheekbones made him look even younger. She guessed he wasn’t actually all that much older than she was, definitely still a teenager.

He was still holding his surcoat, which she assumed bore the crest of the lord he was squire to. With a glance down at it, he abruptly shoved it into their hostess’s hands. “You can take this as payment for the clothing and the help. It’s good fabric you may be able to use in some way.”

“Thank you, my lord. It is indeed finer than any cloth I own.”

The look of devastation on his face as he let the surcoat go was heartbreaking. Going from being a squire in the service of a nobleman to being a fugitive who had to pretend to be a peasant couldn’t be easy for him. Lucy put a hand lightly on his arm. “Thank you for that,” she said softly. “I know what you must be giving up to help me like this, but I’m sure you’ll be a big hero when you show up with me.” When he looked at her, the expression in his eyes made her legs quiver. No boy had ever looked at her that way, like she hung the moon and stars. She was the one to break the gaze when she couldn’t bear the intensity anymore. When she glanced down, she noticed that he’d put his sword belt around his waist over the tunic.

She shook her head. “That won’t do. Would a peasant boy carry a sword like that?”

He put his hand on the sword hilt and squared his shoulders. “I will not go unarmed.”

“I’m not asking you to, believe me. We just need to disguise the sword until we’re free and clear. What about those sacks up in the loft? Maybe if we wrapped some around the sword and strapped it to your back, it would look like you’re carrying a bundle.”

Wrapping the sword in burlap and twine made it a little less obvious. No one who was looking for a sword would be able to miss it, but with any luck, no one would look for a hidden sword on a lanky peasant boy.

Once she had Sebastian disguised to her satisfaction, she spread her arms and asked, “Now, how do I look?”

“You should hide your necklace. That identifies you.”

She reached up to touch her neck, only then remembering that it was the biggest clue to who they thought she was. Her cheeks burned with humiliation. Here she was, supposedly the master of disguise, and she’d forgotten that major detail. Unwilling to risk putting it in her backpack, she turned her back to Sebastian, unclasped the necklace, reclasped it around her bra strap and tucked the pendant into one of the bra cups. “Good catch,” she said. She then turned to Leila and Larkin. “What do you two think?” she asked the dogs.

“Your disguises would not fool us, as your scents remain the same,” Leila said, “but I do not think humans are as discerning.”

“Great! Now, we need a way to get out of the woods. Even in disguise, I’m pretty sure that the two of us will stand out when we’re in the sticks.”

She looked around the outside of the hut and spotted a wagon hitched to a pair of workhorses. “Were you on your way somewhere?” she asked their hostess.

With a bow and a curtsy, the woman said, “I was just about to go to the village with a load of wood when you arrived, your highness.”

“Perfect! We’ll ride with you. We can hide under some of the wood. In the village, we can get out and blend into the crowd.”

“It would be my honor to take you, your highness. I need a moment or two to prepare. Please excuse me.”

When she went inside, Sebastian said, “Where did you learn to plot like this, your highness? Have you had to work so hard to remain hidden in that other world?”

“What? Oh, no. I guess you could say I’ve seen other people have to do stuff like this.” She didn’t want to tell him that it had been in movies, which were fiction, so the ruse worked because the plot needed it to work. But, as she kept trying to reassure herself, nobody in this world had seen all those movies, so maybe this would be an entirely new concept. And if it was a storybook world, fictional ideas should work, even if they were from a different era.

While Sebastian and the woman rearranged the bundles of wood to create hiding places, Lucy turned to the dogs. “I guess we need to figure out what to do with you two.”

“We can make our own way to the village,” Larkin said. “There, we can watch you and track you without drawing attention. When you are safely away, we will rejoin you to lead you to the rendezvous.”

“Okay, then, see you on the other side.”

Lucy and Sebastian curled up in the hollowed spaces on the wagon, the woman placed a layer of wood on top of them, and soon they were off. The way was rough, and Lucy felt every bump. She was sure she’d be black and blue before they reached the village. The ride was smoother when they reached a real road, but that was only in relative terms. “Smooth” wasn’t an adjective she’d normally use to describe that road.

She wasn’t sure how long they’d traveled when a voice called out, “Halt!” and the wagon came to a stop. Lucy held her breath, wondering if these guards would be like their movie counterparts and not bother to search the wagon.

Continued in chapter eight.

Here’s part six of the ongoing serial story. In case you missed it, you can find the beginning here and the previous part here. If you’re enjoying it, please share it with others.

Chapter Six

            As soon as Dawn came through the portal, she turned around to see if Miriam had followed her. All she saw was an ivy-covered wall. It was as though the portal had never existed. Next to Dawn, Jeremy must have noticed the same thing. He dropped his defensive posture to whirl and stick his arm where the portal had been, like he thought he might catch it before it vanished completely, but he was left just waving his arm in the air. “Okay, how do we get back?” he asked.

“We don’t need to get back yet. We haven’t found what we’re looking for,” she said with a shrug.

“You mean we came here without being sure we had a round-trip ticket?”

“Well, somebody came from here to take Lucy away, and it sounded like Aunt Mariel intended to come back after she passed on a message, so obviously it’s possible to go back. I’m sure we’ll find a way when we need it.”

He looked for a moment like he was going to argue or get angry with her, but she gave him her brightest smile, the one that usually worked even on Aunt Mariel, and the anger faded from his eyes until he was actually grinning. “I guess since we’re here, we might as well get the job done,” he said. “What do we do now?”

Only then did she take stock of where they were. The garden was larger than it had appeared through the portal. Walls surrounded it on three sides, and on the fourth side was a building, with a long, covered walkway facing the garden. The plants in the garden didn’t look too unusual to Dawn. The grass and leaves were green and the flowers were normal flower colors. The air was full of bird song and chatter, which sounded slightly different from the birds at home, but not in a way Dawn could identify or even describe. It certainly didn’t seem like a threatening place, and she couldn’t imagine why the aunts would have stayed away if this was their home.

“I suppose we find out where we are,” she said. “There’s a woman over there we could ask.” She pointed to an elderly woman in a black dress who sat snoozing on a bench in the garden’s far corner.

“We’d better hurry. Miriam could be here at any second. She was coming after us.”

“If she didn’t come right away, she’ll take a few minutes. She won’t go without leaving a note for Matilda.”

Dawn struck off across the garden, Jeremy in her wake, heading toward the sleeping woman. She froze when a peacock fanned its tail and rushed toward them with a raucous screech. It wasn’t an ordinary peacock call. It was words. “Intruders! Alert! Alert!” the peacock cried out. The sleeping woman stirred, but Dawn was too startled about what she’d heard to be afraid of being caught.

She turned to Jeremy to find him looking at her with wide, alarmed eyes. “Do you hear that?” he asked.

“It’s talking,” she agreed. “It’s incredible!”

“Stow it, Mortimer,” another voice called out. “You can tell they’re not a threat.” The peacock paused and fluffed out his tail once more before lowering it and stalking away. The sleeping woman’s head dropped back onto her chest. “Don’t worry about her,” the voice continued. “She’s practically deaf, and nobody pays much attention to Mortimer, anyway. He’s such a show-off.”

Dawn turned to see who’d talked, but all she saw were birds. That was when she knew what had sounded odd about the birdsong: There had been human speech mixed in. Did all the birds talk here? As an experiment, she said, “Hello?”

A chorus of hellos responded. Jeremy’s eyes went even wider, and he took a step backward. “Okay, this is truly freaky,” he whispered.

One little red-breasted bird flew down to Dawn, and she held out a finger for it to roost upon. It tilted its blue-capped head at her and warbled, “You’re a girl!”

“I am.”

“And you came from a far away place!”

“Yes, I did.”

The bird chirped out a burst of song and shot up into the air, where it flew in loops while singing. The song included both normal bird sounds and words. Dawn caught only bits of it, phrases like, “It’s happened! In my time! I’m the one! She’s here!”

“You were expecting me?” she called up to the bird.

It flew back to her, resuming its perch on her finger. “Yes! All my life!”

Her hopes rose. “You know who I am?”

“You’re the girl from far away,” the bird explained with exaggerated patience, as though that much should be obvious.

Jeremy held his hand up in front of his eyes, studying it, then scratched at his skin. “Oh, good, we didn’t just turn into cartoons,” he said. “Now, if you’re through communing with your animal friend, we’d better figure out where we are and where we need to go. Miriam could be here at any second, and you know she won’t let you out of her sight once she finds you.”

“Maybe you can help us,” she said to the bird. “I’m looking for a friend. She’s my age, a bit shorter than me, and has curly brown hair. Have you seen her?”

The bird tilted its head, like it had to think about the question, then asked, “You’re looking for a girl? But I was supposed to look for the girl.”

Another bird perched in a nearby bush gave a trilling laugh and said, “No one your age has been here in years. We don’t get novices anymore. It’s not allowed.”

Dawn knew it couldn’t have been so easy that she could just step through a portal and find Lucy and learn who she really was, but she couldn’t hold back a sigh of disappointment.

“What is this place?” Jeremy asked.

“This is the home of the Sisterhood of Enchantresses,” the bird in the tree said. “Outsiders aren’t welcome here, especially those who come here by magic.”

The bird on Dawn’s finger took flight. “You can’t let them find you! Come on! This way!” it cried as it flew over the wall—a tall, solid wall Dawn and Jeremy didn’t have a hope of getting over, under, or through.

A lizard sunning itself on a protruding stone shook its head and said, “I knew I should have eaten that egg when I had the chance. I’d have done us all a favor.”

Dawn stared at the wall the bird had flown over, torn. Surely if Mariel had come here, and this was the place where the aunts had aimed their portal, she wouldn’t be thrown out as an intruder. But that bird had been expecting her and wanted her to follow it. The little bird was the only one who’d seemed to have any information, so she wanted to stick with it, and if she let Miriam catch her, she might not have another chance to learn anything. “Can you help us get away?” she asked the birds.

One bird flew toward a section of wall behind a row of blooming shrubs. “Back here!” it said. “There’s a door.”

There was, a wooden door so weathered that it blended in with the stone. “But can we get through it?” Dawn asked.

“It’s to keep people out, not in.”

“And apparently not too many people want out, not this way,” Jeremy remarked as he fumbled with the latch. “It’s pretty badly rusted.”

Dawn crouched behind the shrubs and watched anxiously for Miriam to appear. “Hurry,” she urged.

“Just. Give. Me. A—” Jeremy said, punctuating each word with a tug on the reluctant door. When it flew open, he stumbled backward into Dawn’s arms.

Once she steadied him, she saw Miriam step into the garden out of a shimmering in the air. The woman dozing on the bench finally woke as more black-clad women came into the garden, carrying gardening tools. “Go!” Dawn urged Jeremy with a shove. They slipped through the doorway and eased it closed, then ran down the sloping lawn, away from the garden wall.

They reached the shelter of a nearby wooded area, where they hid behind a tree and looked to see if anyone had followed them. The door they’d come through opened again, and Miriam and two other women dressed just like her came out and looked around.

“Oh, there you are! What took you so long?” a nearby voice chirped loudly. Dawn looked up to see their bird friend perching on a tree branch overhead.

“We don’t have wings,” Jeremy pointed out.

Dawn signaled him to hush and asked the bird, “What’s your name?”

“They call me Spink.”

“Hello, Spink. You said you were expecting me.”

“I knew a girl would come here from far away.”

“How did you know this?”

“My mother told me. And her father before her. And his father. And his mother. And her father—”

“Now, what about the girl from far away?” she interrupted before the bird went through its entire family history.

“She’s supposed to go to the castle as soon as she gets here.”

“What castle?”

There was a moment of hesitation, like the bird had to think. “It’s a castle on a river, in a town,” it said after a while.

Jeremy crossed his arms over his chest. “When we went to Europe on vacation last summer, just about every town on a river had a castle in it.”

The bird fluttered its wings and gave a distressed whistle. “It’s the castle, the important one. And I have to take you there.”

“Do you at least know where the river is?” Dawn asked.

“It’s very near. I’ve even seen it myself!”

“Would you please take us there?”

“Whoa, wait a second,” Jeremy put in, stepping in between Dawn and the branch where the bird sat. “Do you think that’s such a good idea? Do we want to get away from what could be our only way back home? And if your aunts set things up to come to this place, where they seem to belong to this Sisterhood, would they really leave it up to a bird to get you where you need to be?”

“Maybe Spink was sent by our real allies, the people my aunts took me away from.”

“Geez, you gave Lucy your necklace, and it seems like she gave you her imagination. You don’t know that they kidnapped you. Maybe you ought to try asking them questions before you run off. Now that you obviously know about the portal and the other world, they can’t hide everything from you. They’ll have to tell you the truth.”

“But how will I know it’s the truth? Once they know I’m here, I’m sure they won’t let me go off and learn anything else. But if we don’t learn anything elsewhere, we can always come back here and find them.”

“That’s if we can get back.”

“Jeremy, this is the right thing to do. I can feel it. It’s just like I knew I had to go through that portal.”

“But do we know we can trust this bird? You don’t know anything about this world. For all we know, there’s an evil coalition of songbirds running the place.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Jeremy!” Dawn realized that she was actually arguing with him. She’d never argued with anyone before. She’d had moments when she had to be persuasive, but she’d never raised her voice or had to think of something to counter everything another person said. It was almost as exhilarating as hearing applause onstage. But while they were arguing, the bird flew off. “Hey, wait!” Dawn called out as she ran after it.

“Dawn!” Jeremy shouted behind her, but she didn’t want to lose sight of the bird, so she kept running. Even though Spink was tiny, his dark red breast made him easy to follow through the woods. Dawn dodged trees and leapt fallen logs as she chased Spink. She wasn’t alone. Other forest creatures joined the chase, frolicking alongside her. There was a fawn on its delicate legs, along with a couple of cottontailed rabbits, and several more birds flying overhead.

Spink didn’t seem to notice the parade following him through the woods. “Spink! Wait for me!” Dawn called out, and some of the animals took up the call in human speech. One of the birds flew ahead, and soon Spink circled back.

“We’re going to the river, and then to the castle,” Spink chirped.

Panting to catch her breath, Dawn said, “Yes, I know, and I was following you, but remember, I can’t fly.”

“The lady can’t fly,” the fawn repeated with a giggle.

Dawn turned slowly around to see the cluster of animals gazing at her with adoring eyes. “Oh, you’re all so cute! And thank you for your help.” Jeremy caught up to her, and the smaller animals cowered behind her. “It’s okay,” she reassured them. “He’s my friend.”

“They talk, too?” he asked.

“Some of us do,” one of the rabbits said.

“They’re all friendly,” Dawn assured Jeremy. “They helped me catch Spink.”

“Thanks a lot,” he said, but he didn’t sound very grateful.

“Now we’d better go,” Dawn told the animals. “It was lovely to meet you, but I have to go now. You’re all so sweet, I wish you could come with me, but I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

“I agree. They should all stay right here,” a voice growled. It was a voice that sent shivers down Dawn’s spine.

***

            “Go!” Larkin barked, adding a quick series of yips before he turned and ran back the way they’d come. Leila ran ahead of Sebastian and the princess. Sebastian squeezed the princess’s hand tighter as he started to run. Although her legs were far shorter than his, she kept up with him. Behind them came the sound of growls and high-pitched barks that reminded Sebastian of dogs fighting in the stableyard. Larkin must have been trying to delay their pursuers.

Leila returned, breathing heavily. “There is a safe house ahead,” she panted. “Hurry.”

The undergrowth was lighter there, so they were able to run faster. Soon, they came to a thatched cottage in a clearing. The blue-edged white handkerchief that signified allegiance to the Loyalist cause hung in the front window, and a woman emerged from the house as they approached.

“Long live the king,” Sebastian said.

“And his queen,” the woman replied. “Get inside, quickly.” Once they were inside, she pulled a rope ladder down from a beam overhead. Sebastian held the ladder steady while the princess climbed it, then followed her up, pulled the ladder up, and cut the ropes off the beam. The woman called to them, “Go to the back corner.” Crawling from one beam to the next, they got to an area where boards across the beams created a floor. Sebastian shoved the princess into the corner, positioned himself to shield her and pulled some burlap sacks over them.

He held his breath when someone pounded on the door below, and he could feel the princess stiffen in fear at the sound. He held her tighter so she couldn’t move. The boards under them weren’t nailed down, so even the slightest movement would be noticeable. The woman waited a second or two before opening the door and calling out cheerfully, “Good day to you, good sirs. How may I be of service to you? I have ale if you are thirsty.”

There was a slight hesitation, as though the witch’s men weren’t expecting hospitality and weren’t sure how to react, then one said, “We are seeking a boy and a girl. Every house in the forest must be searched.”

“You’ll not find them here,” the woman said, “but you are free to look. As you can see, there’s nowhere to hide in here, just the one room.”

The sound of a slap made Sebastian flinch inwardly. His every knightly instinct told him to go to the woman’s aid, but his first duty was to the princess. He hadn’t noticed much furniture in the room, but the guards were turning over every piece of it, from the sound of things. The noise seemed to go on forever, and Sebastian was sure that, as thorough as they were being, the guards were bound to discover the hiding place above. Finally, one of the men said, “They wouldn’t have stopped so soon, not if they knew we were right behind them.”

“Ah, let the others find them,” said another voice. “I’m tired of walking. Now, woman, you mentioned ale?”

The searchers were in no hurry to leave. They stayed there, demanding more and more ale, laughing, and talking. Were they going to stay the rest of the day? Sebastian wondered what he should do if they drank until they passed out. Would it be safe to sneak past them then, or would he and the princess have to stay hidden until the guards left?

Fortunately, it didn’t come to that. The men finally had their fill of ale and took their leave with unsteady footsteps. The princess relaxed a little after the door shut, but Sebastian held her tight, hoping she understood from the pressure of his hand on her shoulder that she should be still and wait. He wasn’t sure how much longer it was when a familiar bark sounded outside. The door opened, and Leila’s voice said, “They are gone.”

Sebastian pulled the sacks away and slowly sat up, then helped the princess up. He retied the ladder to the beam and climbed down and held the ladder for the princess. She was trembling, either from the aftershocks of fear or from having to stay so still for so long, so he steadied her with a hand on her waist, then caught her and lifted her down, holding her until she was able to stand on her own. He wouldn’t have minded letting her cling to him tighter or longer, but he knew that was improper. She was a princess of the realm and he was a mere squire, he reminded himself, no matter how good it felt to have her in his arms.

She stepped away from him unsteadily, then gasped when she saw their rescuer’s face. Her lip was split, bleeding, and already swelling, and her face was stained with tears. “Oh my!” the princess said. “Look what they did to you. I’m so sorry.” She took the woman by the arm and led her over to the bench by the rough wooden table near the hearth. She took her healing supplies from her pack and tore open a small pouch. “Now, this may sting a bit,” she said before dabbing at the split lip. “That’s probably going to be pretty ugly for a day or so, but it should heal,” she said.

The woman looked up at her and went deathly pale as her breath caught in her throat. “Oh, forgive me, your highness,” she gasped as she slid off the bench onto her knees at the princess’s feet and grabbed her hand to kiss it. “I didn’t realize it was you.” The princess jumped back in surprise, her fingers going to the necklace at her throat. “To think, the princess is back, and in my home!”

“Please, you don’t have to kneel,” the princess said, helping the woman up and back onto the bench. “You got your lip split for me, and that makes us practically best friends.”

The woman flushed a bright pink and cast her eyes down. “Your highness is most kind.”

“Um, well, thanks.” The princess turned to Sebastian. “Sebastian, shouldn’t we be going now? I mean, the coast is clear, right?”

Again, he wasn’t sure what she’d said, but he thought she’d asked if it was safe for them to go. “I suppose it depends on which direction the searchers went and what amount of ground they’re covering.”

“If they’re smart, they’ll spread out,” the princess said, chewing on her lower lip in thought. “That’ll make it really hard to get by them. Maybe we should wait a while.”

“We don’t have that much time. We have a long way to go, and we have to be there by sundown.”

“And probably everyone between here and there will be looking for us, right?”

“I believe so.”

“Then maybe we shouldn’t be the ones traveling.”

Continued in Chapter Seven.

Here’s the next installment of my serial novel. You can find the first part here. The previous chapter is here.

Chapter Five

            A voice cried out, “Long live the king,” and Sebastian visibly relaxed as a pair of big dogs crawled through the underbrush into the clearing. Several deer followed them, picking their way delicately through the vines and undergrowth.

“We led them on a good chase,” the lead dog growled. “They’ll never track you back here. You should be safe.”

“You must be Larkin,” Sebastian said with the slightest hint of hesitation in his voice.

“Yes, and this is my mate Leila. We will guide you to the rendezvous.” Larkin turned his head toward Lucy and sniffed. “So, this is the princess?”

“Yes, this is the princess,” Sebastian said. “Melantha hadn’t harmed her yet. Thank goodness we got to her in time.”

“And now we have hope,” one of the deer said in a voice that sounded like velvet.

“Hope! Hope!” came murmurs from all the other animals gathered in the clearing. Lucy’s knees felt wobbly, and she had to sit down. The princess—Aurora or Dawn or whoever she really was—must have truly meant something to the people of this world. Boy, were they going to be disappointed that they just had plain old Lucy instead.

“The princess tires,” a doe pointed out.

“Oh! I am truly sorry, your highness,” Sebastian said. “Please forgive me for neglecting your comfort.” He dug in his saddlebags and pulled out a wineskin and a few cloth-wrapped parcels. “It is only bread and cheese and some ale, but that will sustain us for tonight. We will travel to a safe place that will be far more comfortable tomorrow.”

He opened the parcels, took a knife off his belt and cut bread and cheese into hunks, then passed a portion to Lucy. She was so hungry that bread and cheese—which were normally two of her favorite foods anyway—were the best meal she’d ever eaten. When she’d finished the food, he passed her the skin of ale. She’d never had ale before and wasn’t entirely sure what it was. As she recalled, it was something kind of like beer. Not that she’d had beer, either. She was a Baptist girl from a small town, after all, and she wasn’t nearly cool enough to be invited to the pasture parties where everyone sat around drinking beer.

She just about had to hold her nose to manage to swallow enough to get the dryness out of her mouth, and it burned all the way down her throat. It took all her self-control not to gag or cough. On the bright side, the alcohol probably killed all those amebas she was worried about.

She passed the skin back to Sebastian, who took a good, long swig of the stuff. He was probably used to it. He held the skin back toward her, but she shook her head. “No, you have the rest. You need it more than I do, with that shoulder.”

“Shoulder?” Larkin asked.

“He caught an arrow.”

“But the princess has tended my wound,” Sebastian hurried to add.

“Ah, I thought I smelled blood. If you’re wounded, you must rest.”

Sebastian gave a deep sigh, like he was finally acknowledging that they were safe and was letting himself release all the tension from the rescue. “Yes, we must rest. You’ll stand guard?”

“We will stand guard,” the dog said.

With a nod, Sebastian lay down on his uninjured side. Lucy took his cloak from around her shoulders and draped it over him, and pretty soon he was out cold.

Larkin’s mate Leila came over to Lucy. “You should sleep, as well, highness,” she said, bowing low over her front legs. The dog lay next to Lucy. “You may rest your head on my side, highness.” That was when it really hit Lucy what it must mean to be a princess—at least, in a place like this. It wasn’t about wearing a crown and a pretty dress. It was about people—and, in this place, animals—really believing she was someone special who could give them hope for a better future. She had a lot to live up to.

***

            Back in her bedroom, Dawn put on her sturdiest, most practical clothing: a pair of cargo pants, running shoes, and a t-shirt under a shirt with a lot of pockets. She emptied her schoolbooks out of her backpack and filled it with a couple of changes of underwear and socks, her toothbrush, and some toothpaste. She wasn’t sure what else to take, since she didn’t know what the world on the other side of the portal was like beyond the garden she’d seen. Almost as an afterthought, she clasped the bracelet Lucy had given her around her wrist.

She slipped out of the house while her aunts were still sound asleep. The songbirds in the trees outside greeted her with their usual chorus. “Please, not now!” she said, hoping she hadn’t hurt their feelings when they suddenly went quiet again. She sprinted up the street. Once she was out of sight of her home, she slowed down and walked the rest of the way to Jeremy’s street. Jeremy was an Eagle Scout, so he knew about things like camping and hiking, reading maps, and maybe even navigating by the sun, moon, and stars—all skills she thought might be handy on this mission. He was always up for an adventure. The trick would be getting him to believe her.

Thinking about what she’d have to tell him made her want to turn back. She could be going through the portal right now instead of waiting until Jeremy’s parents left for work. But, no, she couldn’t do this alone. She found a comfortable spot leaning against a tree behind some bushes and let herself doze off. She woke when the sun came up, then waited until Jeremy’s parents drove away. As soon as they were gone, she came out of her hiding place and brushed the dirt and leaves off her pants. Something must have bitten her while she slept because the tip of her right index finger was really itchy.

She was still rubbing her finger against the rough fabric of her pants when Jeremy answered her knock on his door. “What are you doing out here alone?” he asked. “Lucy got grabbed yesterday in broad daylight. I was going to come over to walk you to school.”

“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that,” she said, and she hadn’t, since she knew that Lucy hadn’t been taken by ordinary kidnappers. “But I need to talk to you. It’s important.”

He stepped back and gestured her inside. “I’ve got some stuff I need to get together before I leave. You can talk to me while I work. Have you had breakfast?”

She realized that she was about to head off to what seemed to be another world on an empty stomach. She wasn’t too hungry, but she let him microwave some pancakes for her, and she ate while he stuffed his backpack with marshmallows, graham crackers, chocolate bars, and bags of candy. “Are you running away?” she asked.

“I don’t think I’d get far on s’mores ingredients,” he said with a laugh. “No, I’m leading a hike for one of the younger troops right after school, and at the end we’re doing a camp fire. I thought about canceling after what happened to Lucy, but it’s not like I can do anything to help her, and you try telling a bunch of nine-year-olds that something they’ve looked forward to for months won’t happen.” He shoved a bottle of water in with the food. “So, what is it you wanted to talk about?”

She almost changed her mind about telling him, since he did have plans for the day, but she didn’t think she could do this without him. “It’s about Lucy. And about me, I guess. I think what happened to her had something to do with me.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know how Lucy always said that maybe my aunts weren’t really my aunts?”

“Yeah, she even did an Internet search for missing kids who fit your description.”

“She might be right. I don’t know about kidnapping, but don’t you think I’d know something about who I was if they really were my aunts? Don’t your aunts tell you stories about your mother or father when they were kids together? Have you seen pictures of your parents when they were kids, and of the rest of your family?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“I’ve never seen any of that. If my parents are dead, wouldn’t real aunts want me to know something about them? I don’t even know my parents’ names. I don’t know where I was born. I’ve never met a relative other than my aunts. The only thing I have that has anything to do with my parents is my necklace. That’s weird, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is weird. But what does this have to do with Lucy?”

“She was wearing my necklace, and I overheard my aunts talking about it. They seemed to think that whoever took her thought they were getting me because of my necklace and were taking me back to where I’m really from. And they were almost glad about it, like it worked out better for them that way. But that’s not all. You’ve got to see what I found in the garden shed.”

“Dead bodies?”

“Ew! No! Something else. It’s hard to describe. You’ll see.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve tried talking to your aunts about this.”

“If they’ve been hiding things from me my whole life, and they’re still not telling me what’s going on even after what happened to Lucy, do you think they’d give me a straight answer now?”

“Maybe not.”

“And if I ask, they’ll get suspicious, and that will make it harder for me to learn the truth.”

“Do you have a plan for finding the truth?”

“First you have to see what’s in the garden shed.”

“Okay, you’ve got me curious, I have to admit.” He picked up his backpack and slid the straps over his shoulders. “Let’s go.”

When they got to Dawn’s house, they sneaked around to the side yard. “Now we just need to get to the back yard without them seeing us,” she said.

“This sounds awfully sinister.”

“It might be. I don’t know what to think anymore.”

“I think maybe Lucy has been a bad influence on you. You’ve picked up her paranoia.” She gave him a pleading look, and he sighed. “Maybe it’s time for a prank call,” he said, getting out his cell phone. “You don’t have caller ID, do you?”

“We barely have a phone.”

“Okay, you’re about to get in big trouble at school.”

“I don’t think I’m even supposed to be in school today. I had to sneak out during the night.”

“That makes the trouble even worse, and they’ll be more likely to come get you. Do you think all three of them will go?”

“Mariel’s already gone. She went somewhere last night, and I don’t think she’s back yet. Matilda will probably be the one to go. She’s always taken the parent role at school. That just leaves Miriam.”

“Then we’ll need to get her to look out the front windows long enough for us to get into the back yard and see whatever it is you want to show me.”

“I’m sure my friends will help,” she said, looking up at where birds were already congregating in the tree next to them.

He placed the call. When one of the aunts answered, he deepened his voice and said, “Ms. Royal? This is Principal Jade at the high school. I’m calling about your niece, Dawn. We need you to come to the school right away.” Dawn heard the anxious voice on the other end of the call and felt a stab of guilt. “Yes, she did come to school today.” Another pause, then, “No, she’s all right. But there is something we need to discuss about her behavior. I’m sure she’s just upset about her friend disappearing, but we don’t need that kind of disruption in class … Thank you. I’ll see you shortly.”

He closed the phone and put it back in his pocket. “Sounds like she bit. We’d better get ready.” They opened the gate and stepped into the back yard, staying where they couldn’t be seen from the house. From the front yard, they heard voices. “I’ll be back soon, Miriam,” Matilda shouted. “Keep an eye out for that signal or for any word from Mariel.”

“Now,” Jeremy whispered, and Dawn gave a quick whistle and gestured at the birds. They took flight all at once and made a real uproar. Dawn could hear Miriam trying to shoo them away in the front yard. Jeremy grabbed Dawn’s hand and they took off across the lawn to the garden shed.

“Now, what was it you wanted to show me?” he asked.

She unlatched the door and flung it open, hoping the portal was still there. If it wasn’t, she’d look incredibly silly.

It was most definitely there. The garden on the other side was bathed in morning light, so that the shed’s interior was strangely sunlit. The portal tugged at her even more strongly than it had the night before. That other world must be her true home, its call to her was so strong. “Whoa!” Jeremy breathed. “Is that like a window, or can you actually go through to that place?”

“I think you can go through. Mariel went into the shed last night and didn’t come out.”

“So when you said the aunts might know where Lucy was taken, and the people who took her may have thought they were taking you, back to the place you’re really from, it was the place through this portal?”

“I think so. My aunts were creating this while they were talking about taking me home. This must be how they planned to do it.” She stiffened her spine and turned to face him. “I’m going through to see if I can find Lucy and help her get back and maybe learn something about who I am. I would appreciate your help if you want to come with me.”

“Are you sure this is the right thing to do?”

“I know it is. I can feel it. Every fiber of my being is telling me that I have to go through that portal.”

“Do you think it’s safe?”

She gestured toward the tranquil setting on the other side. “It’s a garden! And it’s where my aunts set up the portal to go. I don’t think they’d send themselves into danger. It’s where they were apparently planning to take me, so I’m only going where they want me to go. I’m merely doing it on my own schedule.”

He looked at the portal and back at her, frowning. Then he got the gleam in his eyes that usually meant they were about to do something that would get them all in trouble. “Okay, I guess the kids are going to miss that hike, after all. Unless, that is, we can find Lucy, unmask your secret identity, and get back before school lets out.”

She gave him a quick hug. “Thank you so much! I didn’t want to go alone, and I knew you’d be helpful.”

He took out his pocket knife, opened it and held it ready. “Since we don’t know what’s waiting for us on the other side,” he explained.

The last thing Dawn heard before they passed through the portal was Miriam’s voice calling her name.

***

            The first thing Sebastian noticed when he woke the next morning was a twinge in his upper left arm. That flash of pain brought back everything that had happened the night before and made it clear that it hadn’t been a dream. Sergeant Fulk really had found him in the armory and told him he had to rescue Princess Aurora from the castle dungeon. He really had stolen the dungeon keys and walked out of the castle with the strangely dressed princess. Now, he supposed, he was an outlaw—at least until the princess took her rightful place as ruler of the land. Until then, his job wasn’t over until he delivered her safely to the Loyalists.

He sat up, suppressing a groan, and cringed when his cloak fell off his shoulders. He should have given it to the princess. What kind of knight was he—that was, almost-knight—if he let a princess sleep exposed to the elements while he slept under his cloak? He recalled that he’d fallen asleep first, at her orders, and the last thing he remembered was her tucking the cloak around him. He didn’t think that was how a rescue was supposed to go.

Then again, none of this was what he’d expected. He’d pictured a delicate princess he’d have to protect from every danger and hardship, and instead she’d been the one to tend his wound and take care of him. She was much more capable than he’d imagined a princess would be. She should be good at things like embroidery and dancing, not pulling arrows out of shoulders.

The princess was still sound asleep, curled up on her side, her head resting on Leila’s back. The stories said she’d been gifted magically at birth with great beauty, and he’d always pictured that to mean she’d be tall and willowy, with flowing golden hair and porcelain skin. But, he supposed, that was too conventional to be truly great beauty. There were so many beautiful girls who looked like that. This princess was more striking, in her own way, with her small frame and masses of curls the color of dark honey.

He went to the stream to wash his face, and when he returned, she was sitting up and yawning. “I guess it wasn’t a dream,” she said with a wry smile.

“I am afraid not, your highness.” He took the food from his saddlebag and offered her more bread. She made a face when she drank from his aleskin, but she didn’t complain.

“How’s the shoulder?” she asked between bites of bread.

“It’s sore, but I can use the arm.”

“Well, take it easy. You don’t want to strain it too much until it has a chance to heal. Popping a stitch isn’t pretty.”

He wasn’t entirely sure what she had said, but from the context, he took it to mean that he shouldn’t overtax the injured arm, lest the wound reopen. She spoke so strangely.

“So, now what?” was her next question.

“If you are ready, we should begin travel soon. I am to take you to a rendezvous point, where the Loyalist leaders will take charge of you.”

“Okay, then. Let’s get a move on.” She stood, brushed the dirt and leaves from her clothing, and put her knapsack over her shoulders.

He took his own pack from his saddlebags. With great regret, he gave his horse a swat on the rump and said, “Go home, now!” It just looked back at him with what he might have sworn was a look of hurt and betrayal in its eyes.

“We’re not taking the horse?” the princess asked.

“It would slow us down in the deep woods, and it is very hard to be stealthy with a warhorse.”

“Good point. They also eat a ton.”

He had to fight back a smile as he turned to address his horse again. He wouldn’t want the princess to think he was mocking her. With a sharp pang of regret, he said more firmly, “I said go home, you! You’ll have good food there, and you’ll like that.”

The horse took a few steps away, then hesitated. Sebastian groaned and tried to think of a way to reason with a horse when a wolf charged into the clearing. The princess squeaked, barely biting back a scream, and jumped behind Sebastian. He put his hand on his sword and called out, “Long live the king!”

“And also his queen,” the wolf said, giving the countersign.

Sebastian relaxed and asked, “What is it?”

“They’re searching the forest with dogs,” the wolf growled. The curl of his lip gave a good indication of what he thought about dogs willing to work for the witch. “You must go. My pack will distract them.”

He turned and ran back into the woods before they had a chance to thank him or ask questions. Sebastian swatted the horse again. “Go, I said!” he urged, trying not to sound desperate.

The stag said, “We’ll take care of him.” He and the doe charged at the horse, who finally took off running. The three of them disappeared into the forest. Sebastian took the princess’s hand and followed Leila and Larkin out of the clearing.

The princess’s odd clothes were well suited for travel. She wore leggings of a heavy fabric that should protect her well from the branches and brambles of the forest, and though it wasn’t seemly that she wore men’s clothing, it did mean she had more freedom of movement. Her shoes wouldn’t hold up to long travel as well as boots, but they were more substantial than the light slippers ladies wore at court. He wondered if she’d been in disguise before she was captured.

He hoped they had a good head start on their pursuers and wondered if they were using bloodhounds to track a scent or merely using hunting dogs to flush out their prey. The princess’s hand felt small and damp in his, and when he glanced at her, her face was pale, but her jaw had a stubborn, determined set to it.

Perhaps noticing his attention, she smiled and asked, “Have I thanked you yet for rescuing me?”

He straightened his back and held his head high. “No thanks are necessary. I am merely doing my duty as a loyal subject of your kingdom and my part to restore the rightful rulers to the throne.”

Her grin grew, as though she found something to be humorous, then it faded, and she frowned as she asked, “What happened to the king and queen?”

“We don’t know where they are—if they’re even alive. They disappeared just before Melantha staged her coup two years ago. We were afraid that when you returned, the witch would lie in wait to capture you. The Loyalists were ready to rescue you, though they had to adjust their plans when you came back earlier than expected.”

“Actually, she kidnapped me from my world.”

“Your world?”

She sighed. “It’s really hard to explain, since I don’t understand it all, myself. But I’ve been living in this other, well, I guess you could call it another reality, like maybe a parallel universe. Anyway, this other, far-off place where I’m guessing you can only go using magic.”

That explained her strange manner of dress and her foreign way of talking. “And she went after you in that place?”

“Not personally, but she sent her people to bring me back. That’s how I got here.”

“How did they find you? No one was supposed to know where you were hidden. Not even your parents knew. The enchantresses told no one where they were going. There was to be a signal so they would know it was safe to return to the kingdom after the curse expired, and we assumed the witch had learned how to send the signal to bring you here.”

“I have no clue,” she admitted. “All I know is, these three guys came riding through my town, saw my necklace, grabbed me, and brought me here.”

“Perhaps the enchantresses will return after your disappearance from the other world, and they will be able to help.”

“Yeah, that would be real handy, wouldn’t it?” She was smiling again, as though she’d found something he said amusing or ironic. He didn’t see the humor in the situation.

Their situation became even less amusing when he heard the sound of barking dogs in the distance. Their pursuers were gaining on them.

Continued in chapter six.

Here’s chapter four of the serial story I’m posting on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. If you missed the beginning, you can find it here. The previous chapter is here. I think this might be my favorite part of the whole book. Enjoy!

Chapter Four

            A whole squad of guards surrounded Lucy as they marched her down the hall, the one guard holding her arm so tightly she was sure she’d be black and blue later. They went on for what felt like forever, up lots of steps and down lots of hallways, until they got to something that looked like a throne room. The room was big and long, with a high, vaulted ceiling. Banners hung from the wooden beams. Torches along the walls provided a dim, flickering light as the sunlight from outside faded.

At the end of the room on a raised platform sat two big, golden thrones surrounded by more torches. On one of the thrones sat a woman wearing a long dress of red shiny material that was so dark it was almost black, like dried blood. The red only showed when the light hit it just right, and then it was like the dress caught on fire. Lucy told herself that if she lived through this and got a prom date (which would probably require two separate miracles), she would make herself a dress like that for prom.

As she got closer to the throne, she could see that the woman wasn’t nearly beautiful enough to work that dress. She could have been, but Lucy realized her mom was right when she said “pretty is as pretty does,” because while this woman had beautiful features—aside from what looked like an overuse of Botox—there was still something ugly in her expression that ruined her whole look.

“Bring her to me,” the woman said. The guards formed a corridor, down which the one guard led Lucy. When they got to the front of the platform, he shoved her onto her knees and took one step back. The woman stood, which made the light do some amazing things on her dress. As scared as she was, Lucy found herself thinking about how fantastic that dress would look under a disco ball or with strobe lights. Focusing on that irrelevant detail kept her from completely losing her cool.

The woman came to loom over Lucy, and up close she was older than she looked at first. It wasn’t so much that she’d gone crazy with the Botox as it was that she’d filled in the creases with powder, and she’d used baby powder instead of skin-toned or even translucent powder, so her face was stark white. Her eyebrows had been plucked to thin lines, her eyes were rimmed in harsh black liner, and her red lipstick totally clashed with the red of her dress. Fabulous dress aside, girlfriend was seriously in need of a makeover, Lucy thought.

“So, here you are, after all these years, just as I foretold,” the woman said. Her voice was deep, almost masculine.

“Uh, foretold?” Lucy asked, her heart pounding so hard she could practically hear it.

The woman ignored the question. “I declared on the day of your christening that before the sun set on your sixteenth birthday, you would die.”

“But, I’m Baptist, and we don’t do christenings,” Lucy said. “We just do infant dedications.”

The woman glared at her, and Lucy wished she’d kept her mouth shut. “You dare to interrupt me with your talk of strange customs from the world where you’ve been hidden? I was there on that day. I know what happened. You cannot lie to me. Now,” she declared triumphantly, raising her arms above her head, “it has finally come to pass. And here is the instrument of your doom, the way I foretold it.” With a graceful gesture that made the loose sleeves of her dress shimmer, she pointed to a spinning wheel that stood beside her throne.

A spinning wheel as the instrument of doom? There was something very familiar about that. While Lucy was still working it out, the guard grabbed her arm, dragged her to her feet, and marched her up onto the platform.

The woman looked at her like she was waiting for Lucy to do something. Lucy gave her what she hoped was the universal gesture and facial expression for “And …?”

“Follow your compulsion!” the woman shouted. “Don’t try to fight it. I am stronger than you, and I will win in the end.”

Worrying that she was going to get herself slapped at any moment, Lucy asked, “Compulsion?”

Some of the woman’s triumph wilted. “You don’t feel compelled to do anything? Nothing calls to you or draws you?”

You mean, other than the exit? Lucy wanted to say, but she thought better of it. “No, ma’am.”

The woman sighed. “It was an old spell. It’s bound to have faded.” She pulled herself together and repeated, “And now, the moment of my triumph.” She raised her arms, cackled and shouted, “Touch it! Touch the spindle!”

With a shrug, Lucy reached out and touched the tip of her finger to the part of the spinning wheel the woman was pointing to. It stung a little, and Lucy pulled her hand back to suck on her finger. The room hung frozen for a second, with everyone there holding their breath. They all seemed to be waiting for something to happen.

But nothing did. The crazy woman looked at Lucy, and veins popped out in her neck and forehead. “What?” she shrieked. “What is this? Why is nothing happening?” She swept over to Lucy, grabbed her wrists, and pulled Lucy’s hands up to her face so she could see the drop of blood on the tip of Lucy’s finger. “You were supposed to die! Don’t you feel faint, or lightheaded? The world’s not going dark, is it?”

“No, not really. I’m kind of freaked out, I’ll admit, but I feel fine.” Then because the woman seemed very angry about that, and her being angry was probably not good for Lucy’s continued well-being, Lucy added, “My finger hurts,” as if that made up for her not dying.

The woman whirled to face her guards. “She was supposed to die. I, myself, cast the spell so that before the sun set on her sixteenth birthday, the Princess Aurora would prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and die, and then the kingdom would truly be mine.”

That was when Lucy realized why all this sounded familiar. It was Sleeping Beauty. The evil witch, fairy, or whatever had cursed the princess to prick her finger and die—though death by spinning wheel seemed like a really odd way to off someone. That was as bad as some of the things James Bond villains came up with. But, supposedly, one of the good fairies had changed that so the princess would only sleep until true love’s first kiss woke her. And, at least in the Disney version, the good fairies had then taken the princess off into hiding to protect her until she turned sixteen.

But there was one tiny problem with this. It may have been Lucy’s sixteenth birthday, but she wasn’t Princess Aurora. She wasn’t a princess of any kind. She hadn’t even been elected a homecoming duchess.

“Are you sure you got the right girl?” the witch asked her guards. “Those enchantresses are quite clever, and they hid her so well that I never found her until now.”

“She’s wearing the royal insignia,” the guard pointed out.

The witch stepped closer to Lucy, raised Lucy’s chin with one bony finger, and peered at Dawn’s necklace without touching it. “Yes, she does have the royal insignia. Perhaps we must wait for the proper time for the spindle. There are five more days. Return her to the dungeon.”

Only as the guard grabbed her and dragged her away did Lucy make the connection that should have been obvious. “Aurora” meant “dawn,” and it was Dawn’s necklace.

Which meant that her best friend was Sleeping Beauty.

The guards threw her back into her cell. Now that there wasn’t even the slightest hint of sunlight coming through the window, the cell was dark and spooky, with the faint light coming from the torches in the corridor doing more to cast shadows than to actually illuminate anything. Lucy paced while she assessed the situation as rationally as she could. She was, apparently, trapped in a storybook world. It was a place where animals—birds, at least—could talk and where the fairy tales from Lucy’s world were current events. Sleeping Beauty was still wide awake and hadn’t been anywhere near the fatal spindle yet. In fact, she might never go near the fatal spindle since she was, as far as Lucy knew, still safely in Texas, where no one had the slightest idea who she was. It was Lucy who was stuck living out the story.

Would it still be a Sleeping Beauty story if the beauty never went to sleep? And wasn’t particularly beautiful?

There was a noise outside the cell door, and Lucy shrank into the shadows, worried that the evil witch had figured out a way to make her own prophecy come true and had sent the guards back for her. The figure that appeared at the barred door was a young man, maybe a few years older than Lucy, as far as she could tell in the torchlight, and he didn’t wear a guard’s uniform.

“Shhh!” he hissed as she took a tentative step out of the shadows. Moving like he was trying to be really quiet, he took a big iron key from a pouch on his belt and unlocked the cell door. Then he knelt in the doorway and bowed his head. “Your highness.”

Lucy wasn’t sure how she was supposed to respond to that. Did she thank someone who was bowing to her, and would he stay like that forever until she told him it was okay for him to get up?

“Who are you?” she asked. She figured that sounded royal enough, while still being a pretty important question.

He raised his head to look at her. He was rather cute, with wavy brown hair that was a little long on top and cut really short around his ears and at the back of his neck. He wore a sword at his belt and a green-and-black surcoat with a coat of arms on it that would make a great Camelot costume if she ever got home to volunteer as costume designer for the show. “I am Sebastian Sinclair, your highness, a squire to Lord Argus. The Loyalists sent me to rescue you.”

She liked the idea of rescue, but how did she know she could trust him? It wasn’t like she could ask for a photo ID to be sure of who he was. “What’s a Loyalist?” she asked.

“We oppose the witch and want to restore the royal family. Most important at this moment, we need to save your life.”

Her mom would kill her for running off with a stranger, but better a stranger who seemed nice and who was at least pretending to be friendly than a stranger who’d already said she planned to kill her. “Okay, then,” she said, “let’s get out of here.” She grabbed her backpack and headed for the door.

He stood and caught her by the elbow. “Caution, your highness.” He took off his cloak and wrapped it around her shoulders. It had come to just below his knees, but on Lucy it nearly reached the ground. She pulled the hood up and let it drape over her face. He stepped ahead of her into the hallway and looked around before holding his hand out to her. She took it and they hurried down the corridor, walking quickly, but not so quickly that it looked suspiciously like they were breaking out of prison.

Sebastian seemed to know his way around the castle. He never hesitated to turn down a hallway or go up a flight of stairs. He was pretty tall, and Lucy was very much not, so she had to practically run to keep up with his long legs. He must have been known—and maybe even important, or at least working for someone important—because everyone they passed nodded at him. Some even bowed their heads or bobbed little curtseys at him. They were in the lower levels of the castle, where the kitchens and laundry rooms were, so most of the people they met were servants. Lucy had a feeling the evil witch who ran this place wasn’t exactly up for boss of the year, so even if these people had suspected Sebastian was breaking out with a prisoner, she doubted they’d have tried to stop him.

They finally came out into the stables. “Do you mind riding double, your highness?” he asked as he untied a big chestnut horse. “I am afraid two missing horses might arouse more suspicion.”

“That’s fine with me,” she said. She had ridden horses before, but only old nags on her granddad’s farm, so she didn’t think she was up to riding for her life, if it came to that.

He pulled himself easily up into the saddle, then held a hand down to her. She put one foot on top of his boot where it rested in the stirrup, and from there he lifted her to sit in front of him in the saddle. She moved her backpack around to rest in her lap. “This may be less comfortable for you, your highness,” he said as he wrapped one arm around her waist, “but this way, you aren’t visible to anyone following us.” She couldn’t complain about being held against the rock-hard body of a cute guy. That wasn’t the sort of thing that happened to her every day. Or ever, really.

He kicked the horse into motion and they rode to the castle gates. She held her breath as they went under the big arch, waiting for someone to shout about an escaped prisoner, but no one said anything. They rode through the town, heading straight for the bridge. That seemed like the next hurdle, as it was a drawbridge, and one word from the witch could block the only route out of town that Lucy had noticed.

But the bridge was down, and nobody stopped them from crossing. Sebastian kept the horse at a casual pace even though she wished they could go faster. They’d just landed on the road on the other side when someone behind them shouted. Lucy turned and saw a giant fireball on the castle’s highest tower. It must have been a signal. Without cell phones or walkie-talkies, that was probably the best they could do. The guards on the far side of the river immediately went into pursuit.

Sebastian gave the horse a good kick and held Lucy tighter. The horse took off, and she was glad Sebastian was holding her so tight—now not so much because he was hot but because falling off the horse would have been a disaster. They had a head start, but it sounded like more guards were joining the chase. She hoped Sebastian knew where he was going and had a safe destination in mind because she doubted the poor horse could keep going very long at that speed carrying both of them.

Something whizzed by in the air, and she couldn’t help but flinch. “Arrows,” Sebastian said.

Now she was really glad he hadn’t made her ride behind him. She’d have been an easy target. But that meant his reasonably broad back was now the target, and he was the one who knew how to ride and—she hoped—where they were going.

A pack of dogs ran toward Sebastian and Lucy from the woods. Now would have been a really good time to have Dawn there, since she could tame even the meanest stray with a single word. But the dogs went right past them, running at the pursuers. Along with them were some deer and foxes. Lucy could have sworn she heard someone say, “Keep going to the camp, we’ll hold them off,” as they passed, but she didn’t see any people in that bunch.

The line of trees loomed ahead in the darkness. Sebastian suddenly jerked in the saddle and nearly lost his grip on Lucy. She grabbed the saddle with one hand and caught his arm with the other. He didn’t seem to be in danger of falling, since like a good rider, he was holding on with his knees, but she didn’t want to take any chances. “Are you hurt?” she asked as she hung on for dear life.

“I’m fine,” he said, but his voice sounded tight and a little breathless.

The sound of pursuit was farther behind as they passed the first trees, and the horse slowed gradually to a walk. It was hard to run full-speed in deep woods like these, and they weren’t on any established road or path. Lucy figured the horse was pretty tired, too.

“This way, sir,” a voice from way down below on the forest floor said. In the darkness, she couldn’t see who or what it was, but Sebastian trusted it and followed.

Now she was fairly certain that something was wrong because Sebastian’s breathing was ragged. “Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked.

“It’s nothing,” he said, but she could hear the pain in his voice.

It occurred to her that he’d been hurt for her sake. He’d put himself on the line for her. She supposed that was as good a way as any to prove she could trust him. To be more precise, he’d put himself on the line for the princess, for Aurora—for Dawn, who’d thought she was only playing royalty on the stage.

That brought up the question of what she should tell him. What would he and these Loyalists of his do if they discovered Lucy wasn’t the princess? Would they just ditch her, or would they help her find her way back home? Meanwhile, there was the witch, who was convinced Lucy was Aurora. She wasn’t going to stop looking for the girl she thought was the princess, and Lucy would need protection. Normally, Lucy was totally anti-lying, but these seemed like special circumstances.

The horse had to fight its way through an area of thicker underbrush, with vines hanging from the tree branches above. At least one little branch caught Lucy in the face. She’d have had a nice welt if the cloak hood hadn’t absorbed the worst of it. Finally, they reached a clearing and stopped. “Here we are, sir,” that same chipper voice said from below.

“Thank you, Cotton,” Sebastian said. Lucy still couldn’t see who he was talking to. He dismounted, and she quickly slid out of the saddle on her own so he wouldn’t have to help her. When he staggered and caught himself on the bridle, Lucy knew she was right. He was hurt.

It would have helped if there was more light, but it was fully night now, and all they had was whatever moonlight filtered through the trees. She got the mini flashlight out of her backpack and shone it on Sebastian, illuminating the arrow sticking out of the back of his shoulder. “We’ve got to get you to a doctor,” she said.

“We’ll tend to it momentarily,” he replied. “But first, I must see to the horse.” He raised his voice. “Is there water?”

That same voice said from somewhere around Lucy’s feet, “There’s a stream nearby, sir.” She looked down and saw a fluffy little cottontail bunny.

“I’ll deal with the horse,” Lucy said. “You, sit.”

Apparently, it was impossible for him to disobey a direct order from royalty. “Yes, your highness,” he said wearily, and not at all sarcastically, as he sat at the base of a tree. I guess it’s good to be the princess, Lucy thought.

“I’ll go with her,” another voice said, and she saw a fox walking beside her. She wasn’t sure what good it would do if the bad guys attacked, but at least it should be able to bite them in the ankle, she figured.

She led the horse over to where she heard rushing water and let it drink while she tried to rub it down as best she could with the cloak wrapped around her hand. That was what she remembered having to do when she helped her granddad with his horses. As she watched the horse drink, she realized she hadn’t had anything to drink since lunchtime, and that was hours ago.

Making sure she was upstream from where the horse was drinking so she wouldn’t get horse spit in her water, she knelt beside the stream and scooped some up in her hand, but then realized it was probably full of worse than horse spit. This would be a really bad time and place to get a case of Montezuma’s Revenge, so she let the water fall back into the stream and hoped Sebastian had brought provisions. Then again, any provisions he’d brought probably were scooped out of streams just like this one. She hoped they didn’t have amebas in storybook worlds.

When she brought the horse back to the clearing, Sebastian had made a small fire. She switched off her flashlight and stuck it in the front pocket of her jeans. He was struggling to remove his surcoat, but was hampered by the arrow.

“Let me help you with that,” she said. She removed the horse’s halter and left it to graze on whatever it could find on the forest floor, then went to help Sebastian. Under the surcoat, he wore a heavy leather vest, which must have offered some protection, but the arrow had hit his shoulder just where the vest ended. His sleeve was dark with blood. It was a good thing Lucy wasn’t squeamish.

“Okay, I think we need to get the arrow out,” she said, trying to sound more sure than she felt. Her mom had taught her basic first aid, but she hadn’t covered arrow wounds. Lucy bet it was like any puncture wound. This one didn’t look deep enough that he’d bleed to death if she removed the arrow, and besides, emergency rooms were probably pretty rare in this place, so leaving it in wasn’t an option.

She took the Swiss Army knife Jeremy had given her for Christmas last year our of her backpack’s inner pocket, opened it, and ran the blade through a flame a few times. She opened the scissors tool and cut Sebastian’s shirt around the arrow so she could see the wound itself. It would have helped if some of these talking critters had opposable thumbs and could hold a flashlight so she could see what she was doing. Or maybe they could help. Squirrels could hold nuts, right?

“I don’t suppose any of your friends could hold my light,” she said.

“Chatters!” Cotton called, and there was a skittering sound from above.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah! I can help! I can help!” It was a squirrel, eagerly rubbing its paws together.

Feeling like she was trapped in a surreal nightmare, Lucy switched on the flashlight and handed it to the squirrel. “Hold it so the light shines on his wound, okay?”

“I’m happy to serve, highness. It’s a great honor!”

“And I appreciate it,” she said before the squirrel could go on. She’d always figured those things would be real chatterboxes if they could talk. She turned back to Sebastian. “I imagine this is going to hurt like crazy.”

“It will. It always does. But I know I can bear the pain.”

She had to fight very hard not to roll her eyes. He sounded just like Jeremy, playing macho when it was something potentially serious, and if he was anything like Jeremy, he’d take to his bed and expect to be waited on hand and foot at the first sign of the sniffles.

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll do just fine,” she said. She took a deep breath to steady herself and tried to forget that she was about to cut into human flesh, then slipped the knife in next to the arrow, trying to loosen it so it wouldn’t do so much damage when she pulled it out. Sebastian hissed between clenched teeth but managed to stay perfectly still. “Now I’m going to pull it out, so brace yourself. On three—one, two.” On two, she grabbed the arrow and gave it a sharp pull. He started a yelp but bit it off. She checked the arrow, and sure enough, it looked like the head was all there.

“I thought you said on three,” he said, his voice shaking.

“I figured it would be easier on you if you weren’t expecting it. You’d tense up on three, and that would have made things even worse.”

He gazed up at her with something that looked like wonder, even through the tension of pain on his face. “The place where you’ve been must be truly terrible if you’ve gained so much knowledge about treating arrow wounds, your highness.”

“Are you kidding? This was my very first. But my friend Jeremy used to get bad splinters climbing over the fence between our back yards, so I got a lot of practice pulling those out. This was just on a larger scale.” Thinking of Jeremy again gave her a pang. Would she ever see him again? Surely he’d know by now she was missing, since she’d missed her own birthday party, and he hadn’t had the chance to give her that surprise he’d promised.

But for the time being, she had another guy to deal with. The wound wasn’t bleeding as badly as she’d feared it might, so she didn’t think he’d pass out or go into shock, but infection was a distinct possibility, and she didn’t think he could get a penicillin shot to clear that up in this world. She did, however, have something in her backpack that might help. She opened the outer pocket and found the bottle of hand sanitizer that her germophobic nurse mother insisted she use before eating in the school cafeteria and after being anywhere near a school bathroom. She also had an emergency sewing kit since, thanks to her skill at sewing, she was the go-to girl in the class for ripped hems and loose buttons.

“This may sting a bit,” she warned Sebastian as she prepared to squirt the sanitizer on his wound. He braced himself and barely flinched. This was one tough guy, she thought. The macho bit may not have been posturing, after all. “And now let me see if I can sew this up for you. I’ve never sewn human flesh before. Well, not intentionally. I did have one minor hemming-related incident.” She was really impressed with the way he stayed totally still and let her work. By focusing on how strong and brave he was, and on how incredibly solid the muscle under the skin she was working on was, she managed not to throw up while sticking a needle repeatedly into his flesh.

“It’ll probably leave a scar,” she told him as she finished and covered the wound with one of the larger bandages from the first-aid kid her mother insisted she carry, “but it’s not bleeding too badly anymore.”

“Thank you, your highness. I am in your debt.”

“Um, hello? You got hurt rescuing me from that dungeon. I’m the one who owes you. Thank you for that, by the way.”

There was a rustle in the underbrush nearby, and Sebastian’s hand went straight for his sword. Lucy tried not to swoon at the idea of being with a man who carried a sword and knew how to use it. Then she remembered the squirrel holding the flashlight. If someone was coming, that light was high enough to be visible from a distance. She reached up and said, “Thanks, Chatters, you did great.”

The squirrel put the light back in her hand, and she quickly switched it off. She had no idea how long the battery would last, and she doubted they had Wal-Marts anywhere nearby where she could buy a replacement. “I did great! I did great!” the squirrel said excitedly, until Sebastian gave it a glare and it immediately scampered into a hole in the tree trunk.

Sebastian stood slowly, not making any noise, and moved in front of Lucy. The rustling grew louder and closer, and she tried not to whimper. What if they’d gone through all this, only to be caught again?

Continued in chapter five.