Rana
“Wow,” Wendi said.
An understandable sentiment. This place deserved the exclamation. The others explored while Rana nursed a headache.
She’d discovered severing the connection between herself and the conjured frogs was beyond her current means. Constant sensory input made sleep a dicey prospect. Whenever she managed to sneak a few minutes of shuteye without the others noticing, the inevitable spike of pain from being speared by a heron or clawed by a cat shocked her awake.
That was the bad news.
The good news was her connection to the frogs bridged interstellar distances! Second billing went to the dwindling population of her creations in Radio World. She’d get a decent night’s sleep when she managed to outlive them.
“Danny, look!” Wendi patted the head of a fat wolf. A fat wolf. The slovenly predator licked the red devil girl’s hand and sneezed but didn’t bother standing. “Can we keep him?”
“Uh…”
“I’m kidding!” She cackled and laughed. “The look on your face is priceless!”
Rana cracked an eye open to peek. Daniel flushed and stammered nonsense, no doubt attempting to cover his gullibility. He failed spectacularly, his fumbled scolding attempt overshooting anger and landing on constipated.
She smiled. The young angel’s adorable display had been worth abandoning her catnap.
A chubby bunny hopped close and nibbled a sprig of grass by Rana’s foot. When it finished, it sat on its haunches rather than move on. The grass soon regrew, and the rabbit resumed chewing.
Succulent peaches bent tree branches with their weight. Kenta plucked a hundred with his hair for storage. The Kaminoke took a bite of one, and juice exploded in all directions like a bursting water balloon. Fallen peaches littered the ground beneath the tree where plump deer fed shoulder to shoulder, leaving the stones in piles.
Lea sunned herself and sipped on an icy drink. She’d selected a straw sunhat and summery pink dress for the occasion. Enlarged caramboles formed her hovering recliner and shaded Paul, the candle boy sweating wax droplets in the heat.
“What a delightful place!” Cassie said as she sat next to Rana. The bat girl grabbed the bunny, which didn’t resist in the slightest, to stroke its fur.
“They’ve become complacent,” Rana replied.
Cassie set the critter on the ground, and it waddled away. “How are you?”
Rana slow-blinked. “Alive. And that’s what counts.”
“So, it’s like that…” Cassie frowned and drummed the fingers of her leg-hands. She sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
The bat girl harumphed and scowled. “You know!” Cassie play-shoved Rana as she spoke.
“Apology accepted?”
Cassie grumbled about Rana playing dumb as she let her weight fall on the frog girl, resting her head on her friend’s shoulder.
Rana put a reassuring hand on the bat girl’s knee. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”
“I do, though. I messed up a lot of things. I’m a bad friend.” Cassie’s eyes glistened.
“We’re all doing our best,” Rana said, and the bat girl whimpered. “How many times have you saved their lives?” Cassie muttered something unintelligible. “Friends help each other. You’re a good friend.”
Stolen novel; please report.
Cassie righted herself. “I miss the old days.” She smiled and turned to Rana. “Fly with me?”
“Rule Two?”
The bat girl spread wings grown inches wider in the past year. “I’m big enough to carry you without transforming now!”
Rana was so tired she’d doze and fall off midflight. To deflect, she asked, “What’s this really about?”
Making a show of glancing around to verify no eavesdroppers, Cassie stage-whispered, “What happened with Lea?”
“Have you tried asking her that yourself?”
Cassie groaned. “I can’t ask that! She’s… she’s a little intimidating.”
“This from the Chiropteran.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know how many horror stories my brother told me about bats?”
“Almost as many as my parents told me about cane toads. I see your point, but Lea’s not like that. We’re not like that. Right, Rana…? Rana?”
“It’s the sun!” Daniel shouted loud enough to steal everyone’s attention.
“Yes, yes, what about the sun?” Lea peered over the side of a carambole at him.
Wendi explained, “Danny’s been figuring out why things grow so fast here. We tested the soil and estimated the oxygen concentration in the air, but nothing seemed unusual.” Rana saw bowls of dirt slurries, a bottle of vinegar, a box of baking soda, a compass, and a butane lighter.
“What time is it?”
Kenta sighed and checked the sky. “It’s three o’clock, Dan.”
“What time when we got here?”
“Midafternoon…” Paul shrugged.
“How long have we been here?”
A pause as the others ran mental calculations. “Hours?” Cassie volunteered a guess.
“Hours,” Daniel agreed. He pointed skyward, “The sun should’ve set by now. Instead, it’s circling between, say, 3:00pm and 9:00am, defined by magnetic north.”
Paul bounced his knee, sitting cross-legged. “Someone’s moving the sun?”
Daniel replied while making a so-so gesture, “I think a tidally locked orbit is the more reasonable astronomical explanation… but Occam’s razor says magic is manipulating light rather than a planet. A few extra solar rays are bent to hit this spot so it’s always day.”
“Always day?” Rana stood. Her heart rate spiked, alerting Cassie’s sensitive ears as the frog girl slid into emergency mode. Cassie turned from Daniel to Rana and back, apprehensive.
“One assumes.” Daniel defended his findings, thrown by her tone.
“Get out.” The others looked at Rana, confused. “Run!”
They jerked to their feet but didn’t flee. “Cassie has heard nothing,” Lea began, “And Paul said this was the safe way.”
Rana didn’t care. They needed to go.
“Do you trust me?” she asked Lea. Rana looked to Daniel, the question hanging in the air, and the others looked to him as well.
He met her eyes and nodded. “Run.”
They fled. Fat animals watched them pass without curiosity. Nothing pursued them.
When they’d exited that world of eternal day and entered an innocuous bubble hall, the others wheeled on her and demanded an explanation.
“Will you finally tell us what we’re running from?” Kenta asked.
“Probably nothing.” She may have squandered some of their hard-earned trust today, but she sure couldn’t spend it dead.
The Kaminoke threw up his hands. “If we have to waste days finding a way around this world, I swear—”
“—Let me talk to her,” Daniel interrupted. Kenta stepped away to cool off, and Wendi released Daniel so he could pull Rana aside a few yards away. :What’s going on? No warning from Cassie or Paul, and we spent hours there without incident.:
:You could say the same for the day Red Tail attacked.: Rana crossed her arms to help calm herself. She didn’t need Cassie’s ears to hear Kenta in the distance ranting about paranoid frog girls.
:Alright, sure, but what about daylight has you upset?:
:I…: She hesitated. Rana reminded herself the conversation was private. Daniel had relied on her judgment; she owed him some truth. :It smelled like bait. A lure, a honeypot, too good to be true.:
Daniel furrowed his brow in thought. :We’ve come across oases in the Wilderness previously, though.:
She nodded. :At first, I disregarded the feeling. Then…: The thought terrified her. :My brother spoke of domains once. Briefly. He mentioned certain magics are stronger in certain places. On land, in water, or in the sky. Obvious. However, he included the moon, the sun, night, and day. We found a world of eternal daylight. If not the god who made it, wouldn’t someone take advantage? Someone strong under the sun who waits for fools to stray too far from the node they entered.:
He listened to her, then considered a long minute. :Perhaps we’ve grown overreliant on Paul and Cassie’s magic. Lost our common sense. Rana, we have to balance caution and speed on this journey, but I’ll back your instincts on this.:
Daniel about-faced to corral, cajole, and conciliate. He improved as a leader every day. Rana thanked him in her heart for taking her advice, though they’d never be certain whether her warning had been paranoia or insight.
No magic was without weakness or counter. She knew Paul and Cassie’s senses could be deceived by enemy spells. Yet, rare for two such different abilities to be foiled at once… Rana recalled on the day they’d met Red Tail, Paul had marked the path as dangerous.
As they departed the portal to the beautiful, sunny, and perhaps deadly world, Paul trudged along as if bearing a heavy weight. She narrowed her eyes at the candle boy but said nothing.