Three women, three wizards marched down the road to the school. The trio struck an intimidating pose. Tria with her snake limbs, Thistle with her broomstick and battered sword, and Mace with her…attitude? She had to admit to herself that she was very much lacking compared to the others.

But there was no time for that, trouble was afoot, which meant that Thistle and Mace were on the case! Eugh, that didn’t even sound cool in her head.

Ringabell was hopping nervously just ahead of them. “I’m just not sure how to tell you,” he said. “It’s just really…hard to explain.”

They were about to round the corner to the school house. Mace had seen it a dozen times, what could possibly be…going…on. They saw the schoolhouse, or, what they thought was the schoolhouse. Growing in, around, and all over the school was a jungle. Maybe it was a jungle? It was a mass of brightly colored foliage.

“Oh my,” said Thistle.

“It’s giving me a headache just looking at it,” said Tria.

“It’s like…something an impressionist would throw up after a surrealist bender,” said Mace.

Ringa squawked in amazement, “Oh wow this has actually gotten much worse.”

The foliage was eye-straining, tree trunks were bright red, leaves were neon green, and smattering of other clashing colors in the bushes. Mace bent down and plucked a green-purple leaf. It had an oily sheen, but at the same time felt almost chalky. It wasn’t even leaf shaped, it was a scribble, the suggestion of a leaf. The color stained her fingers as the leaf almost crumbled in her hand.

“Do you smell that?” asked Tria.

Mace sniffed, she could smell something coming from the leaf. “Smells like…wax?”

“I know that smell…” said Thistle, her eyes going wide. “It’s crayon. I have eight kids, I know crayon when I smell it.”

Tria and Mace looked at her.

“Crayon?” started Tria.

“Like for coloring books?” Mace finished.

Thistle nodded, the two looked back at the jungle, and something clicked into place. It was a child’s drawing in three dimensions. That’s what they were missing. If you looked closely at a normal tree, you could eventually pick out individual leaves. But the treetops here were just green blobs. It was like some gargantuan child colored in the scenery at a school play. From this angle, each tree did look like a flat cutout. But when Mace swayed her head, the whole forest turned with her. There was apparently only one side to each tree, and the effect made her dizzy.

A woman rushed up to them. Mace assumed her to be the teacher.

“Oh thank gods you’re here!” she gasped. “It’s still out back!”

“What happened here?” asked Mace.

“Are the children safe?” Thistle interrupted.

“Did you say ‘it’s still out back’? " noted Tria

“I had just sent the kids home not even an hour ago before these…things started bursting up everywhere!” exclaimed the teacher.

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“Did anything happen before these plants started growing?” asked Mace.

“Anything out of the ordinary? Anything magical?” .

“What did you mean by ‘it’?” Tria noted again.

“Not that I can think of. One moment I’m giving ‘good job stars’ on drawings, the next there’s a crayon tree shooting up through my roof!”

“Did you or any of your students want something like this to happen? Like maybe their imagination got out of hand?” asked Mace. She had heard of young wizards discovering their talent in extreme and often flammable ways. But even this seemed a bit much.

“Am I the only one who heard her mention an ‘it’? That seems a bit more pressing!”

“Well I do have one boy who likes to draw- ,” the teacher was suddenly cut off by a booming roar. The group jumped, Ringa took flight instinctively.

“Oh hey look, that thing Tria was trying to say, who would’ve guessed it,” said Tria.

Sweat dripped down Mace’s forehead as they moved through the foliage. Mace knew it wasn’t a real jungle, but it sure was sweltering like one. She dabbed at her head with a sleeve, and grumbled when it came back with a dark yellow stain. All of them were covered in the smudges of a million different colors. Thistle seemed to be handling it better, probably from experience, Mace surmised.

“This is taking too long,” whispered Tria.

“I know,” Mace agreed. She could see the Sun setting through the canopy. “We need to seal this thing away before night falls.”

“No, what I mean is, we should’ve been able to cross the yard and back in a fraction of the time we’ve been walking.”

Mace felt quesy. Space was stretching again. Portals and wormholes were far from the only ways to access different dimensions. Spacetime was a fabric after all, and while you could punch holes through it, you could also ‘soak’ into it.

“Maybe I could check the air?” Thistle piped in, clutching her broomstick close. “Maybe I could spot something?”

“But it could also spot you, we’d lose the element of surprise,” Tria replied. The element of surprise here being the boring, common expression, not Neversium.

Mace put in “Yeah, but it’s better than wandering around, just hoping to stumble on it.”

Tria bobbed her head side to side, weighing the options. “It’s risky, but we don’t have much of a choice.”

Thistle nodded and mounted her broom. She ascended slowly, careful to dodge the branches. It wasn’t difficult, as a child’s idea of branched with straight, much more efficient than their real counterparts.

When Thistle had floated out of sight, Tria cleared her throat and asked “So, any plans for tomorrow night? It is the weekend after all.”

“Well I’m a jobless dropout, so everyday is kind of a weekend for me. Other than that, I was thinking of checking out Cornsilk’s stuff, get that squared away.”

“No, I mean plans for something fun?” Tria clarified.

Mace thought for a second. “Well I was thinking of collecting rocks over by the river. My collection hasn’t been updated in a while.”

“Like, a night on the town…you know…with a special someone?”

“I mean, I don’t really know anyone besides- ,” realization hit Mace harder than her rock collection ever could. She whirled around to face Tria, who just smiled and cocked an eyebrow. “Oh! I…uh…I didn’t realize…I mean…with you? I mean…I could move some rock collecting around…”

Oh gods, thought Mace, here comes the blush. “Boy, it’s hot out here,” she said, trying to play it off. “Are you hot? I mean of course you’re hot it’s like ninety degrees here, but I meant hot as in temperature not as in attractive but of course I’m not saying you’re unattractive!”

Tria placed a calming hand on her shoulder. She was a bundle of nerves. She didn’t know what to say, so she said everything at once in a torrent.

“Sothisisadatedateright?Notlikefrienddate?Notthattheresanythingwrongwiththat!OhgodsIdontknowifIhaveanythingtowearandnowImstartingtoramble…”

“Hey! We’ll just do something casual, ok?” Tria gently interrupted.

Mace breathed, looked into Tria’s captivating eyes, breathed out and said “Ok.” She returned Tria’s smile with a slight smile of her own. They heard twigs snap as Thistle lowered through the facsimile of tree branches.

“We’re a bit past the school house, we just can’t see it from down here. And I also spotted something moving through the brush to the northeast. Something big.”