Dancing Days

by Val St. Crowe

  * * *

  Practicing for the Maypole dance was allocated only for the morning, so afterwards, Sawyer scurried back to the clothing and fabric enclave to get started on making all the dresses, and Maddie went back to ballet. Nora could have hung out in the dance enclave longer, but she wasn’t really in the mood, so instead, she went back to her tent. She thought maybe she’d take Catling to visit the other duckling-kittens at Mack’s place, especially since she hadn’t seen him in a while. She figured she could help him out with the chimeras, maybe.

  But Catling wasn’t in the tent.

  It had been so long since Catling had gotten out that Nora realized she’d gotten a little lax in securing her tent opening. Catling could have probably gotten out easily. It also wasn’t snowing, so she wasn’t quite as worried. Catling would be okay wandering around. Probably. Someone would find her eventually. Right?

  Then she remembered the edge of Helicon, staring down into its seemingly bottomless depths. Catling wouldn’t wander so far that she toppled off the edge, would she?

  Nora was worried again. She began to walk around the tweens and rebels enclave, calling for the cat-duck. She almost wished there was snow on the ground again. At least that would mean there were tracks. She looked inside all the tents, scoured the surrounding forest, and then went down into the food enclave. Maybe Catling had gotten hungry and followed the smell of food. She asked every muse she met if they’d seen her, and no one had. Nora didn’t want to think that Catling had indeed gone to the edge of Helicon and fallen off. She hoped the cat-duck was closer. Someone had to have seen her.

  And, in fact, finally, she met a muse who had. One of the food muses nodded. “Oh, yeah. I saw her. Little black and white thing? She was half-hopping, half-running, going due south along the stream.”

  Along the stream? That was good. She wasn’t going toward the edge. Well, from the way Nora understood it, Helicon was actually like a floating island, so there was an edge no matter which way Catling was going, but she wasn’t going directly to the edge. There were muses in between Catling and the edge. Maybe someone had stopped her.

  Nora thanked the muse, asked her to try to pick up Catling and hold onto her if she saw her again, and headed down the stream, still pausing to ask people along the way if they’d seen her pet. She was down the stream, past the food enclave, in an area where there was nothing but a big field. Across the stream, she could see the tents of the philosophy enclave. Had Catling come down this far? Had she crossed the bridge over the other side of Helicon?

  Suddenly, there was a loud cracking noise and the sound of screaming. Nora looked up to see the now familiar sight of a huge beam of purple light ripping up out of the center of the philosophy enclave. The beam immediately divided into strands, bolts of purple power, brushing along Helicon and withering into red circles with everything they touched. Another portal. Nora hit the ground, covering her head and waiting for it to pass.