The ground shifted beneath my feet, and I tumbled backward. Not quite a straight eight foot drop to the bottom of the trench, but a hard fall nonetheless, and my right hip ached. Fortunately, I’d avoided hitting my head off a few of the small stones embedded in the packed mud near where I landed.

“Are you alright?” Proctor hollered at me.

I rose slowly, and rubbed my right side, sure I’d find a welt or a bruise there soon enough.

“Yeah,” I muttered. I was a bit stunned for a minute.

Once I shook off the fall I was ecstatic to realize Proctor’s suggestion had worked. The trench’s length doubled. I remained about a hundred meters from where Proctor stood, but the trench extended west well beyond me. It neared half a kilometer in length.

“It worked!” I said. “You’re a genius.”

“I might suggest laying on the ground, perhaps at one corner of the trench, before you do it again. Do you know what I mean?” Proctor said.

“Yes.”

I waited for Proctor to catch up with me, and we walked together to the west end of the dig out.

“How many times was that?” I said.

“You haven’t been counting?” Proctor said.

I shook my head.

“Oh dear,” Proctor said. “With such powerful magic, you may want to consider being more cautious.”

Thanks Captain Obvious.

“Yes,” I said. “But, that’s neither here nor there now. How many more doublings do I have?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Proctor said. “Oh dear.”

“Enough to potentially put this thing all the way around Moonlight?” I said.

Proctor didn’t answer right away, and immediately while we walked I was struck again by the giant concrete perimeter wall to our right.

“Would you look at this thing?” I said, waving my arms emphatically at the wall. “I mean, this is an architectural marvel. Right?”

Proctor nodded, and smiled. “It’s uh… definitely… something.”

“Funny,” I said. “I’ve never felt more vulnerable to attack than right this minute.”

“How do you mean?”

“Think about it,” I said. “If anything or anyone were to ambush us right now, we’d have to run back to the gate, or the archway. There’s only one way in or out, and we’re moving farther from it as we go here.”

“Not ideal, I suppose,” Proctor said.

Then I thought about the Boop Soda machine. It was tucked inside the perimeter wall. The more we walked west, the closer we’d come to the machine, meaning the site for the ball park would be contained behind the giant wall. I know I’m stating the obvious here, I was just astonished - still - at the absolute scale of the village’s fortification. It really was amazing.

Actually, taking in the size and scale of the village’s wall, and thinking of it as a fortress, you could conjure an image in your mind of a sports stadium.

We neared the far end of the trench, and I was eager to try Proctor’s suggestion. I was also excited about the idea of using this power to construct a baseball stadium.

“Do you think I could create a stadium this way?” I said.

“I don’t see why not,” Proctor said. “Is that what you had in mind for Moonlight’s park?”

To be honest, I’d imagined something different when we’d first started talking about creating the team’s home ball park.

“I was picturing something more open,” I said. “Remember the movie ‘Field of Dreams’?”

“It’s been years,” Proctor said. “If I’ve even seen it at all. I believe that I have.”

“You’re kidding, right?” I said. “You haven’t seen what might be the greatest baseball movie of all time?”

“I honestly cannot remember,” Proctor said. “It’s from the 1980s, yes? It’s been a long time, if I have seen it. Anyway, I do have mental images of it. I think I know what you mean in terms of the look of the park. You’re picturing something open, and set among a larger pasture. Yes?”

“Well, in the movie it’s corn fields,” I said.

“Right,” Proctor said. “That rings a bell. You want to plant corn?”

He said it in a joking matter, but I’d seriously considered it back when Trevor first started scraping the ground at the ball park’s site. How cool would it be to have the same field they had in that movie?

Only thing was, it wouldn’t be the best in terms of seating potentially hundreds of people to watch the games. There didn’t need to necessarily be actual corn growing around the outfield either. It’s more the pastoral setting of ‘Field of Dreams’ that I loved so much, and that was more what I’d be after for Moonlight’s ball park. Proctor agreed it sounded nice.

With my belly on the brown grass, I did as Proctor suggested, and laid at the corner of the trench. I reached with my right arm, and touched the mud beneath the dig line on the trench’s end.

BAM!

This time I did not fall. Chalk up another genius idea for Proctor.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Even better, the trench stretched beyond our view to the west.

“It’s got to be nearly a kilometer now!” I said, hopping back to my feet.

“Presumably.”

Sometimes I wanted to check Proctor to see if he had a pulse.

Amazing stuff. We had a twenty foot deep trench, forty feet in width, and it was hundreds of meters long. I was making Moonlight probably the most impregnable fortress this world had ever seen. No army of builders, and hordes of countless laborers required.

Magic is magic. Who knew?

CRACK!

The trench jumped to two kilometers-ish in length. It bent around the perimeter wall’s southwest corner. We were along the western border. Me, being paranoid we were going to be attacked by a T. Rex at any second, I’d leap up with each deliberate touch to sprint to the end of the trench to get the next touch done.

Okay, okay, not a sprint the entire way. We’re talking about hundreds of meters between intervals. I wasn’t in that great of shape to be able to run the whole length. Truth be told, it was more of a speed walk, and I’d worked up a sweat embarrassingly fast. Point was, the faster we could go and get the trench extended around the perimeter, the less of a chance we’d be ambushed before getting all the way around to the relative safety of the archway again.

One surprise, to me at least, was the lack of panicked villagers outside the walls. Granted we were kilometers from the entrance/exit. But, I’d have thought we’d have been inundated with concerned locals swarming us as we went about fundamentally altering their land.

It could be that everyone was still enthralled by the sudden appearance of the giant wall, and still in shock from it, and hadn’t even thought to see what I was doing with the defensive trench. Man, were they in for a rude awakening.

Not to say the villagers were against what I was doing, I didn’t know. Sad though the event was, I think the giant house centipede attack purged Moonlight of a lot of my naysayers. Time would tell if that was true.

BOOM!

Over four kilometers of trench. We had the entire southern, and western edges of Moonlight covered. What is that? Something like two and a half miles of trench? Incredible.

“Are you going to fill it with water?” Proctor asked me as we attempted speed walking our way to the end. (Not possible, by the way, neither of us was in shape enough to speed walk more than a kilometer.)

“Imagine how much of Moonlight’s natural spring I’d have to divert in order to fill this thing,” I said, pointing to our left as we huffed and puffed our way along. “I’ve basically created a substantial body of water unto itself.”

“If you filled it, yes,” Proctor said. “Quite a moat. A ring river.”

“Do you think rain might do it?” I said.

“It might be too cold for rain,” Proctor said.

I could attest. My lungs burned from the pace we’d set hurrying along Moonlight’s exterior. Proctor’s cheeks were rosy, and the tips of my ears stung a bit too.

“Well, that’s the good thing about winning ball games,” I said. “Apparently we’ll be rewarded with warmer weather.”

“Won’t that be nice?”

When we reached the trench’s end in the shadow of evergreens along Moonlight’s north side, I realized I was still going to have doublings left over even after enclosing our de facto fortress with the would be moat.

Two more touches is all it took to complete the ring. After the last deliberate touch, we bowed our heads to walk the last leg around Moonlight. Sure, we were worried about being vulnerable to attack, as least, I was, but we were also tired. Our pace slowed a lot as we made our way back around toward the archway.

“I’m going to use whatever doublings I have left to expand the scraped terrain out at the ball field,” I said.

“A good idea,” Proctor said.

When we did reach the village’s entrance/exit, there were indeed a bunch of panicked locals gathered. It appeared as we approached, they were dismayed by the huge ditch in front of them, that extended as far they’d be able to see. We found Kestrel at the wall’s opening too. When I walked toward the old builder, some of the villagers ran away, their faces fearful.

“Witch!” I heard someone cry.

We greeted Kestrel, and he was absolutely beside himself as he took in the scale of the wall, and the gateway arch.

“I’m hoping to have a gate built here,” I said.

“Aye, a portcullis, yeah?” Kestrel said.

It caused me to glance at Proctor who shared a sly smile.

“I’ll be right on it,” Kestrel said. “The trees required. It will take some time.”

“Maybe we could post some guards here?” I said. “Some kind of security patrol?”

“Perhaps,” Proctor said. “In the meantime, I need a rest. That was a lot of walking. I must leave you for a bit.”

Proctor walked off the north to bed down on the furs he’d had situated on a tree platform. It sounded like a great idea, but my mind raced with all I still had to accomplish while the sun remained in the sky.

“How long to build the gate, do you think?” I asked Kestrel.

“Ah, lad,” Kestrel said, and he stroked his chin. He ran his eyes upward around the crest of the arch. I could see the wheels turning in his head. “I’d hope for a fortnight.”

“Yikes, that long?”

“‘Tis not a simple job, my boy,” Kestrel said. “Look at the size of this monstrosity. Just look at what ya done.”

We stood taking it in for a minute while more villagers arrived to observe the gateway for themselves.

Kestrel let out a long exhalation, and a large cloud of vapor bellowed from deep within him. “I’ll do my best to gather labor,” he said. “As many of ‘em as I can muster. The more folks I can put to the work, the quicker she’ll be done.”

“Understood.”

“The north end’s going to be shorn of trees,” Kestrel said. “The wood asked for here…”

His voice trailed off, and I knew what he meant. A gate this size would require a lot of logs.

I bid the old builder farewell, and I went westward. I wanted to do as I’d mentioned to Proctor, and use the rest of whatever doubling magic remained to get more ball park terrain processed.

As I went I’d managed to repel yet more villagers, so that was nice. Yes, I mean that facetiously, I wasn’t really all that enthralled with the idea of being regarded as a witch. I understood why, but no one likes to be thought of as public enemy number one, let alone a literal heretic.

So, needless to say, my stomach dropped and my bowels nearly let go when I’d reached the west end just inside the perimeter wall.

At first, in the shadow of the wall, all I could make out was a few figures. But, as I walked closer - against my better judgment - I could make out roughly a dozen villagers. Mostly young men by the look of it.

Go the other way, I remember thinking. But, then I saw what they were doing. Their hooting and hollering voices bounced off the giant concrete barrier near them, which amplified the alarm in my brain. But, worse than that, they were absolutely swarmed over the Boop Soda machine. They were kicking it, pounding it with their fists, and yelling indecipherable words with violent fury.

These young Moonlighters were trying to kill this machine they saw as the Devil. Which is when the thought occurred to me, they might have it in mind to do the same to the person who’d used that machine to great magical effect.

Uh, yeah, what was to stop these twelve raging souls from turning their feverish disgust on me? And… I was alone. Trevor was… who knows where? Gak? No idea.

A chill ran through me because at this point I was close enough, I could just make out their twisted furious faces.

And, that’s when one of those ugly faces snapped away from the target of all their violent frustrations, and focused straight onto me.

At first we just stared at one another. And I stood there, frozen. Unsure what to do. A true deer in the headlights.

That’s when the young man said something aloud, something that I couldn’t make out. He spoke subtly to the others, and they all stopped beating on the soda machine. All of their gloomy faces turned my way. I swallowed but my throat contained cotton. My feet were concrete blocks. The gang looked at me like a pack of wolves having just discovered a lone, vulnerable rabbit. In the open. Easy prey.

I don’t think I’d ever been more afraid in my life.