Beyond the Forest

by Kay L. Ling

  He was probably right. Sheamathan’s wolfhound crossed into the Fair Lands and he hadn’t escaped the spell.

  Crouching over the stone, she used her phone camera to get a couple close-ups. The photos turned out all right but didn’t really capture the shimmering iridescent flecks. Well, it was the best she could do.

  “Okay, so I’m burying this again, and then I’ll see if I have something for you to eat.”

  The boys were in luck. When she rummaged through her glove compartment, she found a few beef sticks and a handful of hard candies, mostly peppermints. She held them out. “I’m sorry, this is all I have.”

  “Thanks. After we finish this, we still got apples,” Greg said.

  She got into her car. “See you later.” She couldn’t babysit them all day.

  As anxious as she was to find the hidden safe, it would have to wait, she told herself as she pulled out of the parking lot. She had a few things to do first. After breakfast she had to start a journal before she forgot important details.

  Had both Jules and Elias gone to Shadow? If so, their letters could be full of useful information. She drove out of the park. By the time anyone found her journal, maybe the world would be safe and her journal would have a happy ending.

  When Lana got home, she raced up the stairs, and after tossing her backpack in the entry hall, walked around her apartment as if seeing it for the first time. What a fabulous place—screwed-up kitchen, beige walls and all. Trailing her hands lovingly over the worn, non-descript furniture, she kicked off her sneakers and flopped onto the couch.

  Last night she’d slept on a stone slab in a dungeon. Who would believe that? She couldn’t tell anyone or they’d think she was crazy. But if she kept a journal, she could write whatever she wanted. Putting her thoughts on paper would be therapeutic.

  After breakfast, she started writing, and by two o’clock she had written a couple pages under three categories, leaving blank pages for future notes. Section one: a general description of Shadow and the “people” she had met there. Section two: her gemstones, how she had used them, and the results. Section three: the knife and its various reactions—with and without her conscious input. Now she was starting section four—theories and observations about gem powers in Shadow, involving the Challenger’s knife and her gemstones. Setting down her pen, she reread the last paragraph:

  Jordy said the Challenger’s blade felt hot. That concerns me. Fair Lands gems burn evil beings from Shadow. The rat-boys have spent nearly a year in Shadow under the influence of dark powers. Could Fair Lands gems react to them now as if they were natives? If so, Jordy’s in trouble. The knife felt hot to him but only warm to Greg, which supports my theory. I don’t know everything Jordy’s done, but he was willing to attack an old gnome and a woman and give a stolen knife to someone he knows is evil. I’m not judging him. I’m just saying if he’s “evil” enough to make the knife feel hot, he may be stuck in the Amulet or Shadow forever. Evil beings from Shadow can’t enter the Fair Lands. Maybe he can’t, either.

  Enough for today. She shut the notebook. Time to do something boring and normal like pick up a few groceries. After that, she’d go to the jewelry store to look for the safe, and the weirdness would start again.

  When she pulled up in front of the old, three-story brick store, she felt like a burglar. She scanned the street. This time of day, on a Sunday afternoon, there wasn’t much traffic. The surrounding shops on Main Street were closed, so no one would see her go in. Not that it really mattered. She had every right to come here after hours but she still felt uncomfortable about it.

  With her empty satchel and toolbox in hand, she nudged the car door shut with her hip and stared up at the store. The old brick building’s narrow windows looked innocently back at her as if to say, No hidden safe here.

  Her heartbeat quickened with anticipation as she unlocked the door and walked in. This wouldn’t take long. Half an hour, tops. The office wasn’t that large.

  She walked through the store to the office in the back, and with trembling hands turned the key in the lock. The familiar smell of old books and lemon furniture polish greeted her. Closing the door behind her, she set down her gear and looked around. If I were Elias, where would I hide my safe? Jules had said something about it being behind the paneling.

  Moving from one wall to the next, she ran her hands over the wood and examined each rectangular section of walnut paneling. No sign of a removable piece—no mismatched wood or loose moldings. But the safe had to be here.

  Could the removable panel be under a painting? She checked behind the oil paintings and the oak-framed news article. No luck. The only hiding place left was behind the heavy regulator clock. If the safe wasn’t there, she’d run out of places to look.

  Getting the clock off the wall to look wouldn’t be easy. Someone had screwed it to the wall in addition to hanging it from a heavy nail. She muttered under her breath as she opened the clock case door, screwdriver in hand, and set to work.

  Once the screw was out, she faced the task of wrestling the clock off the wall. The darn thing must weigh forty pounds. Good thing she stayed in shape. With a groan, she hoisted it off the supporting nail and then, shaking with exertion, slowly lowered it to the floor. Sliding the clock aside to get it out of the way, she examined the exposed paneling.

  A shiver of excitement ran through her.

  There! A tiny crack formed an outline around the panel, wider at the bottom so a screwdriver or letter opener could loosen it. This was it. The safe had to be here. How many years had people sat in this office, never suspecting there was a hidden safe?

  She slid the screwdriver into the crack, lifted the bottom edge of the panel, and then slid her fingers under and gave a tug. The panel lifted out.

  For a moment, she was too excited to do anything but stare.

  A black, enameled wall safe, decorated with fancy gilt scrollwork, gleamed in the recess. About a foot-and-a-half square, it had probably held jewelry long ago. She knew the combination by heart: 14-35-72. She rotated the dial. A decisive click of the lock told her she had gotten the combination right.

  Please don’t be empty!

  Holding her breath, she pulled the door open.

  Yes! Inside lay two packs of letters tied with ribbons, a hardcover ledger, and a stack of loose papers. Giddy with excitement, she ran to get her satchel.

  Her formerly dull life had taken a dramatic turn, she told herself as she packed the satchel. The gnomes needed her help to defeat Sheamathan. She had rescued two enchanted rats who had tried to mug her and steal a legendary knife. Now, a wolfhound, formerly a man, had sent her to find a safe that no one in her family knew about. After she read these papers she would decide if she wanted to help him.

  Once everything was packed she shut the safe and spun the dial. Time to tidy the office and lock up. She didn’t want Arlene to know she had been here.

  At a little after four o’clock she left the store, opened her trunk, and stashed the toolbox and satchel. What secrets did the letters hold? No one in her family knew what had become of great-great grandfather Elias, but she had a feeling she was about to find out.

  Glancing at her watch, she sighed in frustration. She was dying to curl up on the couch with her treasures, but she had to meet the boys by dusk. With any luck they would be human, not rats, and she could deliver them to their families.

  The sun was setting when she pulled into the parking lot. As she got out of the car her heart sank. Rats! Two furry forms raced toward her.

  “I told you so,” Jordy said, panting. “The timer hit zero. We’re rats again.”

  “Yeah,” Greg said dismally. “At least we got to be human for a day.”

  She couldn’t think of anything to say that would make them feel better. “Let’s go. The breghlin might be looking for you.” She opened the back door. “Hop in.” The rats scrambled onto her back seat.

  As she pulled out of the lot, she felt thoroughly ashamed of herself. Here she
was feeling inconvenienced; they were trapped in rat bodies, maybe for the rest of their lives. When she looked in the rearview mirror, she caught a glimpse of them huddled despondently together and it tugged at her heart. She couldn’t just dump them in a field. Unfortunately, she’d been too engrossed in her journal to plan what to do if they had turned back into rats. Now she was stuck taking them home.

  Driving down the park’s main road she remembered that the Challenger’s blade had felt hot to Jordy. What if he couldn’t enter the Fair Lands? What if he disappeared like the bedroll? Gripping the steering wheel with damp palms, she slowed as they approached the exit.

  Jordy let out a yelp.

  She tensed. “What’s the matter?”

  “I just got an electric shock! At least that’s what it felt like!”

  She glanced worriedly over her shoulder. “Greg? Are you OK?”

  He rubbed his paws over his face. “I’m OK, but I felt something, too. Not an electric shock. Just a weird tingle.”

  Hmmm. She was willing to bet she had just driven through the Amulet into the Fair Lands. Jordy had come through, but he’d been zapped, which was rather troubling.

  “So, where you takin’ us,” he asked.

  “I was hoping to take you to your parents. But now that you’re rats—” her voice trailed off.

  “Yeah, that wouldn’t be a good idea,” he agreed sadly.

  “Looks like I’m taking you home while I find you a place to stay.”

  “That’s real nice of you,” Greg said. “Most girls wouldn’t take a rat home.”

  “Not our kind, anyway,” Jordy said with a squeaky laugh.

  “No rat jokes or you won’t get your treat,” she threatened good-naturedly.

  “Treat?” Jordy said.

  “As a precaution, I bought you something.” She handed back an opened bag of rat chow. “Don’t get it all over my seats.”

  “Gee, thanks!” Greg said, sounding genuinely pleased.

  In a moment she heard enthusiastic munching.

  No one would believe this, she told herself. Heaven help her if Lillian discovered two giant rats in the apartment.

  Lana rolled to a stop in the driveway, and before she let the rats out of the car she gave them a lecture. “I’m letting you stay against my better judgment. Don’t make me regret it. You can sleep on my couch. I go to work tomorrow morning at nine-thirty. You can hang out and amuse yourselves, but you’ll have to be quiet. And keep your paws off my stuff. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  “No problem.”

  “Okay. Let’s go before someone sees you.”

  After she let them into the apartment, she went back for the toolbox and satchel. By the time she returned, Greg and Jordy had settled onto her couch.

  “Nice place,” Greg said.

  “It has that homey, lived-in look,” Jordy said.

  “No cracks about my housekeeping or out you go.”

  “It wasn’t an insult,” Jordy protested. “I like it here. My mom is a neat-freak.”

  She looked around. “Um, what do you need for, well, bathroom arrangements?”

  “A box with some shredded newspapers will do,” Greg said. “Actually, we could probably jump up on your toilet.”

  She pictured herself walking into the bathroom in the middle of the night and finding a giant rat perched on the toilet seat. “I’ll make you a litter box,” she said hastily.

  She came back from the basement with a few old newspapers and a box from her last mail-order shipment, put the box in a corner of the living room, and shredded a couple newspapers into it. “How’s that?”

  “Great. Thanks,” Greg said from the couch. Jordy lay next to him, blinking contentedly.

  She got her satchel and stopped by the couch on her way to the bedroom. “Is there anything else you need before you go to sleep?”

  “My mom usually kisses me goodnight,” Jordy said hopefully.

  She grimaced. “Don’t press your luck.” She went into her bedroom and locked the door behind her.

  Chapter 23

  Lana promised herself she would only spend a couple hours reading. Tomorrow, she could finish the rest. Of course, after two hours she was too fascinated to stop. By two o’clock she was fading fast and knew she had to sleep. She wouldn’t need opalite jasper tonight, she thought with a sleepy smile. She turned off her bedside lamp and fell asleep in seconds.

  When the alarm went off at eight-thirty, she rolled over, slapped the snooze, and spent a few groggy minutes mulling over what she had read the night before. It was so safe and uneventful here. No gnomes, breghlin, pythanium or heroes turned into dogs.

  She sat bolt upright.

  But there were talking rats! In her living room. On her couch! She had to get rid of them, but how?

  Slipping out of bed she fumbled through her closet, too distracted to care what she wore. Where could she take the rats? A pet store? Tempting, but no. A traveling circus? Step right up. See the giant, talking rats! No, but the rat-boys would be entertaining. Hopefully, she’d think of something at work.

  Settling on black pants and a red, long-sleeved blouse, she lay her clothes on the bed and tiptoed to the bathroom. Yawning, she cranked the shower to full blast and watched the bathroom fill with steam. A scalding hot shower would be a sure-fire way to wake up after reading half the night. She stepped into the shower. Water thundered against the ceramic tiles, but there was nothing she could do about it. She hoped it didn’t wake the rats.

  Energized, she stepped out of the shower, toweled off and then hesitated before switching on the hair dryer. Oh, well. No time to air-dry today. She pushed the “on” switch and cringed. The dryer sounded like an airplane turbine at liftoff.

  Miraculously, the rats slept through everything. She looked at them on her way to the kitchen. Their eyes were closed, and except for the occasional twitch of a leg or their whiskers, they lay motionless.

  Lana took a container of yoghurt from the refrigerator and stood at the counter, eating out of the container while her coffee brewed. When the coffee finished, she put the yoghurt away and poured a mugful, and with a big yawn, turned toward the table, and almost fell over two rats.

  “Whaaa!” she cried, sloshing hot coffee onto her hand.

  “Sorry!” the rats cried in unison.

  “We smelled the coffee, and we woke up,” Greg said.

  Jordy nodded. “Yeah, it was like the old days, being at home.”

  She looked at them uncertainly. “You don’t drink coffee, do you?” Setting the mug on the counter, she ran her scalded hand under cold water.

  “Not usually. Especially now,” Jordy said.

  “Caffeine? With these little bodies? No way, “Greg said. “There’s no coffee in Shadow, anyway, so it’s a good thing we aren’t used to it.”

  She dried her hands and carried her coffee to the table. The rats followed and jumped onto the chairs across from her. For a moment they all looked at each other awkwardly.

  “Um, do you want more rat chow?”

  “No thanks,” Greg said.

  Jordy said, “We just want to hang out with you. If that’s all right.” He wriggled his whiskers and showed his teeth. Lana nearly spilled her coffee. She would never get used to that smile.

  “Sure. No problem. It’s kind of nice having company,” she said, thinking back to the Tree Home and the three of them having dinner and drinking fialazza with the gnomes. “You’ll probably be bored while I’m gone. I can leave the TV on low. Just remember, my landlady lives downstairs and I don’t want her to know you’re here.”

  “TV!” Jordy clapped his paws in delight. “That would be great!”

  “Don’t worry. We’re used to just hanging around,” Greg said. “Sometimes breghlin made us carry messages. Sometimes they had us spy on other breghlin to see what they were up to. Other than that, we just slept, explored, and tried not to get eaten by anything.”

  She leaned forward, elbows on the table, and looked
at them thoughtfully. “You knew your way around the castle pretty well.”

  “Yeah,” Greg said. “Especially where to find food and hiding places.”

  “And we kept track of everybody worth keeping track of,” Jordy added.

  She sipped her coffee, watching the rats over the rim of her mug. If she asked the right questions, Greg and Jordy might know something useful, but she wasn’t sure what to ask. If only they could write. Imagine how many journal pages they could fill after living in Shadow so long.

  “I’d better get going.” She brushed back a wave of hair and carried her mug to the sink. After filling the rats’ food and water bowls, she turned on the TV. “See you around six.”

  As Lana parked her car and walked into the jewelry store, she fought an irrational fear that Arlene would know someone had been in the office. It was silly to worry. Even if Lana had left something out of place, Arlene would probably never notice.

  All morning Arlene bustled about in a self-important manner, making sure Lana knew she was keeping an eye on her. Mondays were always slow, so the two of them were the only ones working, and when Arlene disappeared for a two-hour lunch, Lana secretly rejoiced.

  The day dragged. The hands on the clock seemed glued in place. By four, Lana had waited on only three customers, but she had rearranged the contents of two showcases, vacuumed, and even cleaned the rest room. She still had an hour to kill.

  Trying to come up with more busy-work, she decided to clean her jewelry bench. She sat and put tools away, and then sorted through a stack of sticky-notes. Under an advertising circular she found a handful of lapis lazuli stones she had removed from a damaged bracelet weeks ago. She scooped up the scattered stones and looked at them absently, her mind straying once again to Greg and Jordy. The rat-boys couldn’t stay with her indefinitely. Where could she take them? She’d thought about it on and off all day but hadn’t come up with a good solution, and she had to tell them something tonight.

  Partially formed thoughts and impressions tugged at her mind. She felt uneasy about the rats living somewhere else. They should stay. She needed them. Why, she couldn’t exactly say.