EPISODE XVIII

Nom Nom Nom

Emma’s birthday had arrived, and she was already having a great time. The guests were arriving, piling little presents on top of the kitchen table, and already the snack-bar style lunch her parents had set up was bringing so many kids together. Humans and cats, all mostly of Emma’s age, were scrambling around all over throwing crackers, laughing, and talking loudly. A somewhat large number of board games were laid out, a trampoline was set up in the backyard, there were video games hooked up to a truly gigantic TV for a Yeshalo home, and there was even live music.

To be fair, the live music was just Emma’s brother Richard playing instrumental tunes on his electric bass, but everyone seemed to be enjoying it, including Richard. He was almost of the age to go to college, but had made no indication that he wanted to go; instead, he played his bass all day and wrote music. His girlfriend, Taylor, was also here, and Taylor was just the coolest in Emma’s mind. She always wore vibrant clothing and blue-tinted glasses that looked like they belonged in an action movie. She was currently running the video game station as a bit of an announcer.

“Aaaaand… Ivanoe wins!” Taylor shouted, pointing at the cat who had just whipped everyone’s butts in the fighting game. Most party games of this sort in Yeshalo were designed to be played by both cats and humans, and there were two different kinds of controllers to match; handhelds, and four-paw floor controllers. There were many arguments about which controller was more suited to what kind of game, but for a party such as this the arguments didn’t really matter. “Come and get your prize!”

The cat jumped to the front of the room and took the peanut butter and chocolate candy that was on offer only for winners, and then Taylor started another round.

One might think, from this image, that Emma’s parents were well off. This wasn’t precisely the case, they had a pretty standard income for a family in Nuk, they just spent most of it on things their children would like, such as games, special food, and an unusually large number of basses for Richard. Mr. and Mrs. Richardson (every first son in the family was named Richard) stood at the back of the room with the handful of other adults who had come and were making small talk, letting the party just be… a party.

Emma herself was not as popular as the number of guests implied, most of these kids were just acquaintances, not actual friends—really, only Amaris and Rin actually cared about Emma, and at the moment neither of them was here. But Emma liked spreading joy around so she never complained about her parents throwing such large parties. It was fun.

That said, currently, Emma was getting a little frustrated. She was attempting to talk to Ralph, mister muscular and sporty and, above all, dreamy. She was the birthday girl, surely she would be able to get his attention? But luck was not on her side, even now he had a gaggle of boys and girls following him everywhere he went. He looked kind of tired, actually.

“Y’know, you can take a break,” Emma tried to say.

“Ralph? Take a break!?” one of the girls snorted. “Emma, you’re delusional! He never stops!”

Ralph forced a smile. “That’s right! Onward to victory! Sleep is for the weak!”

“O-oh okay…” Emma backed away, grumpily sitting down on one of the couches near the video games. Taylor let the round of gaming continue without a commentator for a while and sat next to her.

“Still trying to make the moves on my brother?”

“Yeah…”

“I keep telling you, it’s not gonna work, life’s too chaotic for him. He doesn’t even notice the girls around him all the time.”

“But… but that means I have a shot!”

“Eh…” Taylor tilted her hand from side to side. “Then again, I am his sister, I think he’s a huge dork.”

“He is an amazing sports superstar!”

Taylor snorted. “Yeah. Sure.” She patted Emma on the head. “I, personally, think he needs fewer people fawning over him.”

Emma kicked her feet back and forth.

“Anyway… word on the grapevine is that you have… plans for this party.”

Emma blinked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, I heard from Nina Petrovna that there’s an ‘interesting’ girl going around calling in favors to arrive… fashionably late.”

“There…” Emma’s eyes widened and she glanced at the clock. It was almost half an hour since the party had started.

Which meant…

The doorbell went off and Emma broke out into a grin. She’s here.

Emma ran to the door and opened it wide. “Welcome to the party!”

Amaris grinned. “I hope you don’t mind that I’m late!”

“Oh, not at all!”

“And I brought some friends over!” Amaris gave a very exaggerated wink and walked in. Behind her trailed in a decidedly unusual number of guests. There was, of course, Jenny, who was not surprising even to most of the kids at the party, her existence was somewhat common knowledge at this point, even if her abilities weren’t. Some of the kids waved at her in warm greeting and she shot them a finger guns gesture.

Irene came in next, acting as the “chaperone” for the whole deal even though Amaris needed no such thing, it was part of keeping appearances. Given how she was awkwardly glancing to a spot in the room where there was nothing, Orville was probably hanging out in her memory. Emma was delighted to have her suspicions confirmed when Orville appeared to her.

“Hello, little lady. Enjoying yourself?”

“Very much!” she said to the air, getting odd looks from a few people. Oh just you wait, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Vayvaresi ran in. “Greetings, Emma. I apologize ahead of time if I feel the need to bail, there are a large number of… humans, here, but we need to test to see how far this goes.” She hopped onto Emma’s shoulders. She was heavy, but Emma managed not to fall over. “Enjoy another year of your life. With age comes wisdom.”

“With age also comes annoying complications,” Coleus said as she walked in.

“Perhaps you should wait to experience it yourself before casting judgment.”

The sight of a kitsune and a dryad talking to each other casually about age was inherently shocking to so many that they stopped whatever they were doing. One of the adults dropped a glass on the ground, shattering it.

“What’re you all gawking at!?” Jenny asked, putting her hands on her hips. “We’re just guests!”

“Carry on!” Amaris called. “Don’t mind us!”

Emma giggled to herself. Oh, that’s definitely not going to happen… She glanced to her parents with a smirk.

Her mother looked confused. Her father, meanwhile, was giving her an uncertain expression—he’d probably figured out that she’d planned this, but that there was nothing he could do to complain about it. Good. Maybe you can get to know these unusual people.

“By the way, got someone for you to meet, Emma,” Amaris said, turning Emma around. In the door there was… a boy, slightly younger than her, in a green cartoon-camo outfit and a gray parrot on his shoulder. He had a warm smile and soft brown hair.

“Well… hello!” Emma said, tilting her head to the side. “Who’re you?”

“Chert Mason,” he said, extending a hand and shaking hers formally, an act which confused Emma slightly. “This is my bird, Bird.”

“I’m Bird!” Bird squawked.

“Mason…?” Emma thought about this for a moment. “Related to… General Mason?”

“Yeah, he’s my great uncle.”

“Uncles are great!” Bird squawked.

“Wow…” Emma said, turning to Amaris. “You really pulled out all the stops!”

“Couldn’t get Scarlet,” Amaris said with a sigh. “She had work to do, sadly. She did want me to give you this, though.” Amaris pulled out a scarlet envelope and handed it to Emma. “I think it’s probably a gift card or something.”

Emma nodded, running to place it on the pile of presents. She noticed a few new ones had been added, presumably from Amaris’ group. Two stood out—a present made of black and red material that looked like it was carved from ancient runes, and another one made out of leaves in a spherical shape. The latter was obviously Coleus, but the former was only identifiable since it was labeled from: Amaris. “Amaris, what did you get me…?”

“You’ll just have to open it to find out!” Amaris giggled. “It won’t be anything you’re expecting!”

Emma’s mom glanced at the present warily but said nothing.

“Probably won’t burn the house down! …Probably.” Amaris gave Mrs. Richardson an innocent smile.

Mrs. Richardson knew she was being messed with and just rolled her eyes, trying to return to small talk. Except small talk now involved talking to a memory ghost. Orville was just being himself, and it was clearly confusing everyone immensely. A few of the adults had already excused themselves and started taking their kids, but most of the kids didn’t have adults here with them. Not to mention that many of the adults knew it would be rude to leave before presents were opened, so they were stuck with dealing with these… strange people.

Emma noted that while her parents weren’t angry—just annoyed—some of the other adults were. One man in particular was shooting Coleus a death glare. At first Emma just thought the dryad was oblivious, but then she remembered what Amaris had told her—her own people on the Strider tried to do a lot more than just give her glares. People hating her and trying not to say anything about it out of politeness was probably a great improvement for her.

Emma’s grin widened. This was going to be the best party ever.

~~~

Vayvaresi set her feet down in a video game controller designed for a cat. She fit, more or less. “Okay, so, how do I play?”

Amaris shrugged, grabbing a human controller in her hands. “I actually don’t know this one, uh… Taylor!”

Taylor struck a pose, running her fingers across her face dramatically. “Ask and thou shall receive! This is a racing game! You are placed behind the wheel of a car!”

“But I don’t know how to drive,” Vayvaresi said.

“Well the game’s much simpler than a real car. You press green to go fast, red to go slow, and use either a stick or a pivot to steer. Hey, uh, we need a cat over here to demonstrate the proper way to use this controller!”

While Amaris and Vayvaresi played various games with, as of yet, no sign of Vayvaresi’s curse pushing through Amaris’, the others were mingling in their own way.

Coleus had taken to hanging around the snack table and was just shoveling snacks into her mouth. She was, notably, avoiding anything green and leafy, going for crackers, cakes, and, when she thought no one was looking, she downed the jerky sticks.

“You’re the plant lady on the TV!”

Coleus choked on the jerky stick she was eating, holding up a finger to tell the cat who had addressed her to wait.

“Dad shouts at the TV when you’re on.”

“Not… surprising…” Coleus gagged.

“You don’t seem evil.”

“Oh, I sure hope not!” Coleus downed a glass of punch, taking a huge breath. “That’s better…”

“Why’s he hate you then?”

“Probably because I’m strange and unusual.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

Coleus took a minute to judge the age of the cat and quickly realized she didn’t really have enough experience to do that well. She could tell that he was… a child, perhaps too old to be called a kitten. Smaller than most of the other cats playing around, but that didn’t tell her much, he could just be a small one. She had no idea how much she could try to explain.

“Well, sometimes people do things that don’t make sense?” Coleus said with a shrug.

“Dad always said you can think your way through any problem.” The cat scrunched his face, seemingly getting more and more confused the longer he talked to her.

“Well, he could be wrong about that, or he could be right and we just aren’t doing it right. Uh…” Coleus tapped her fingers on the table. “I don’t know, I don’t know your Dad.”

“Oh. He’s not here. He has work.”

Coleus shrugged. “Then I guess I can’t answer your questions, I don’t know.”

“Weird. Are you an adult?”

Coleus blinked. “I… I’m old enough, but my species doesn’t grow to their final stage except by choice.”

“Oh. You’re a teenager.” The cat seemed disgusted at this and walked away.

Coleus decided it was best not to try to figure out what exactly that encounter meant, if anything.

“Punch drinking contest!” Jenny shouted from across the room, throwing a glass down before a small group of the kids.

“Miss Zero,” Chert said, coughing. “That hardly seems an appropriate activity…”

“Hardly appropriate!” Bird echoed.

“Are you implying that I’m training them to become alcoholics when they grow up?”

Emma gasped. “Jenny! You don’t say that!”

“Whaaaaaat?” Jenny held her hands to the side, grinning wryly. “Afraid you’ll lose?”

“…I mean I’ll definitely lose but that’s beside the point.”

“I thought you wanted a strange party.”

Emma looked Jenny right in the eyes. Then she sat down and filled a cup with punch. “What are the rules?”

Chert sighed. “Miss Richardson…”

“Wow, you really are a prim and proper guy aren’t you?” Jenny asked. “Look, I’m Jenny, that’s Emma. Got it? Good. Now.” She passed a glass of punch to Chert and Bird. Bird started drinking before the rules were explained. “The rules are simple. Since drinking until we pass out won’t work on me, we’re simply going to see who can make it through the most glasses in two minutes.”

Emma gripped the table. “Right. Speed drinking. I… I can do this.”

“That’s what they all say…” Jenny chuckled, passing out glasses to other kids who wanted to partake. “Let’s get some more pitchers here… yeah…”

“Once the adults notice what we’re doing they are going to make us stop,” Chert pointed out. “This is a surefire way to get a stomach ache.”

Jenny shrugged. “Live a little. Okay, so… threetwoonego!”

Two minutes later, Jenny was the victor, to the surprise of no one. The runner-up, however, was very surprising—Emma, and she was only behind by a few glasses.

“Where did you learn to drink!?” Jenny said, baffled.

Emma let out a huge burp. “Excuse me. Uh. It’s important to keep hydrated and I like water so uh… I dunno, I kind of just learned how to drink it continually so it could make my entire body feel refreshed at once.” She beamed. “I have a skill!”

“Very… impressive…” Chert groaned, flopping onto the table and groaning. “I never should have agreed to this…”

At this point, Ralph and his posse arrived to the game. Ralph wasn’t the one that spoke, though, it was one of the older girls. “Ah, this looks like a good challenge! Isn’t that right, Ralph?”

Ralph looked at the glasses of punch in confusion.

“You can show your stuff! A… drinking contest!”

“I… guess.”

Jenny grinned. “The others are probably full-on drinks for now.”

“Full-on drinks!” Bird squawked.

“But I am always up and running. I can take anyone on. The rules are simple…”

Ralph didn’t do very well, much to the disappointment of his posse.

Irene, meanwhile, was hanging around with the adults with an actual drink, a light sort of wine that Mrs. Richardson had brought out shortly after Amaris and her crew had arrived. Irene idly wondered if the timing was related.

“So…” Mrs. Richardson said. “Where you from?”

“Down south, frontier town called Unrust,” Irene said. “And I mean frontier of frontiers, it’s not even on Yeshalo maps. Very… desert.”

“Is that why you dress with so few layers?”

Irene glanced down at her midriff-bearing outfit. “I mean, this is a little light, I guess… it’s not standard wear for Unrust, I just inherited it from my family. Where I was originally from, clothing was a sign of status.”

“Oh? And what status does that outfit represent?”

Irene stammered. “U-uh, this isn’t really important, b-but my house was one of minor nobles… we have no authority here, please don’t think anything of us, I just wear this because it’s comfortable.”

Mrs. Richardson blinked. “A noble house…?”

“W-well, I left that behind. I work at a grocery store now and live on the Kelvins’ couch. N-not anything worth making a fuss over!”

“Hmmm…” Mrs. Richardson placed a hand on Irene’s shoulder, making her jump. “You seem like you really are oblivious.”

“W-what?”

“That outfit is so revealing it makes everyone here think very particular things about you.”

“R-revealing? What would that e—” Irene flashed beet red as it clicked. She dropped her drink, shattering the glass on the ground. “Oh-oh no no I’m so sorry I—”

“Honey, spill!” Mrs. Richardson called.

“On it!” Mr. Richardson said, rushing to clean up the mess with a broom.

“Now, Irene, you and I are going to solve your little problem…” She grabbed Irene by the hand and pulled her deeper into the house.

“B-but I should help clean…”

“My husband’s got it, you need some help. Now…” Mrs. Richardson dragged Irene all the way to the bedroom and opened up the wardrobe. “What we need is something long with sleeves that goes with your current bottom…”

“Is… is the hat a problem?”

“Oh, not at all, your hat is quite fashionable. Draws the eyes, in a good way too… aha!” Mrs. Richardson pulled out a gray jacket with a lot of buttons on it. “This looks like it’ll work!”

“Th-thanks…” Irene put the jacket on over her, covering all her skin up to her neck. “I’m… so sorry I didn’t realize and no one told me…”

“I’m surprised the Kelvins didn’t say anything! Hmph! Letting you walk around like that…”

“I… don’t know…” Irene pulled the jacket tight. “Um… how many buttons is it proper to use?”

“In a formal gathering all of them, but in less formal ones you can leave up to three buttons undone.”

“Isn’t that just as revealing?”

“Well…” Mrs. Richardson blinked. “What’s acceptable or not is pretty subjective…”

“Oh no…” Irene shivered. “I am never going to get this…”

“Give it time, you’ll figure it out.” Mrs. Richardson frowned. “At least… you have the opportunity too. From so far away, with customs so… so…”

“Strange?”

“Strange, yes, let’s go with strange.”

Irene may have been a nervous wreck, but she was able to tell when someone had definitely been going to use a different word. Naturally, she didn’t call Mrs. Richardson out on it.

Mrs. Richardson kept talking as they returned to the party though. “You really do need to learn a few things about how a proper Yeshalonian behaves. Dress, yes, but also behavior. You came with… quite the strange group.”

“W-well, that was what Amaris asked for.”

Mrs. Richardson sighed. “That child really is cursed?”

“Definitely.” Irene adjusted her hat.

“She’ll never be able to fit in society, poor thing.”

“I d-don’t think she wants to?”

“She’ll change her mind eventually…” The two of them returned to the party, and Mrs. Richardson held out her hand. “Look, there’s Amaris and that… fox-thing with her. The other kids are avoiding her, see?”

Irene nodded. “That’s normal.”

“She thinks it’s normal…?”

“She said it happened even before she left, few people wanted anything to do with the ‘math girl.’ “

Mrs. Richardson shook her head. “It’s so sad, is what it is. She had great prospects, and could probably have become a doctor or a scientist or something. But with all this insanity around her, she won’t be able to do those things.”

“S-she doesn’t want to, anyway. Last I heard she wanted to use her curse to find the strange things, the dangerous things, and keep them from hurting people. She’s actually doing pretty well.”

Mrs. Richardson shook her head. “That brings the undesirables of the world into the open. They should stay hidden.”

Irene tapped her wrist. “I d-don’t think that’s possible anymore, with the Strider and all…”

Mrs. Richardson glanced to Coleus trying to subtly eat even more snacks. “…I suppose not. Times are changing. What’s proper is going to be destroyed…” She sighed. “I am not looking forward to it.”

“Ch-change can bring about good things too.”

“Not this kind. This is going to break down the social barriers that keep Yeshalo together. All this chaos is going to destroy this carefully arranged order.” For a moment, Mrs. Richardson wrung her wrists. “I hope the world’s still a safe place to live when Emma has kids of her own…”

Irene frowned. It’s already not safe, it’s all just hidden away. “…I… I don’t know if I should tell you this, but…”

At this point, Orville appeared in Irene’s memory, munching on an ice cream cone. “I would have gotten you one, Irene, but alas, I have to ask you to come to the snack table to join me, as I am but a memory.”

“Orville!” Irene stammered. “You… you scared me!”

“Huh?” Mrs. Richardson said.

“Oh, hold on,” Orville jumped to Mrs. Richardson’s memory.

Mrs. Richardson stared at him. “Cursed… to be a memor—memory? What in th—what are you—I can’t even—stop talking pl—oh how har—”

Orville gave up. “That woman is perhaps the worst at dealing with memory discussions I’ve seen…”

Mrs. Richardson held her hand to her head. “I… am going to go sit down…”

Irene put her arms behind her back and rocked onto her heels. “She’s… interesting, that’s for sure.”

“I wasn’t able to get anything out of her, I wouldn’t know. Anyway… ice cream, you and me?”

“Sure,” Irene said, glancing back at the other adults at the party, noting how the vast majority of them had disapproving looks on their faces about what was happening around them. She had taken these looks as success in Emma’s and Amaris’ mission before. Now… now they unnerved her. “Ice cream sounds good…”

~~~

While the adults grew more and more annoyed and untrusting of Amaris and her crew, over time something began to change. Initially, many of the kids had been avoiding the strange guests, but more and more of them were attracted to the strange and unusual.

“Jenny, you’re not allowed a turn on hitting the pinata,” Emma said, pulling Jenny back.

“But… but it looks so fun!”

“You’d blow it up in one hit!” Emma pushed her back. “Let everyone else have some fun!”

“I mean, the blindfold might make me miss…”

“And if you do you’ll punch a hole in the wall, won’t you?”

“Well. Uh. Fine…”

Coleus was the one currently up, blindfolded and with a bat in her hands. Taylor had just finished spinning her around until she was dizzy. “Now, I have to check, you dryads aren’t immune to being dizzy, right?”

Coleus flopped over. “N-no, I am… loopy right now! Let’s… dizzy-story that pinata!” There were many groans from the gathered crowd of kids, but also a few amused giggles. Coleus shakily stood up. “I think… the pinata… is… this way!” She stumbled forward, initially going in the right direction but very quickly veering off course. She seemed to sense that she was turning, so she stopped herself. “Wait… no… uh…” She tilted her head. “Direction… direction… solution!” She held out the bat in front of her and did a spin attack, smacking everything around her.

She barely tapped the pinata.

Taylor blinked. “…I think that was a success?”

“Yes! Woohoo!” Coleus threw her hands into the air, holding the bat high. “I did it!”

“Up next…” Taylor glanced at the kids. “Amar—”

“ME!”

Everyone turned to glare at the cat that had just arrived… Judit.

Most of the kids scrambled away from Judit in fear, allowing her to come up to the pinata. “See, I deserve it, since apparently my invitation got lost in the mail, I’ve been robbed of so many opportunities.” She pointed a paw at Amaris. “And this little… nobody has somehow taken my place among these festivities.”

Amaris blinked. “I mean, if you really want to go, I’m not attached to i—”

Jenny shoved Amaris aside. “You seem to be a little delusional here, cat!”

Judit looked Jenny up and down in shock. “Clearly, you don’t know who I a—”

“Oh shut it, I know exactly who you are. Judit. Cat. Seemingly professional bully.” Jenny cracked her knuckles. “You don’t know who I am. That makes this fun.” She grinned. “You seem to be under the impression that your invitation was lost. It was never sent, moron.”

Judit hissed and bared her claws. “You’ve just made a huge mistake! You’re right, I don’t know who you are, but I don’t care. You have made yourself an enemy this d—”

“Oh good! I like a good enemy. Want to have a go now, right in front of everyone?” Jenny balled up her fist and gave it the slightest of magical auras. “I’ll go easy.”

Judit’s eyes widened. “You…”

“Yes, I’ll totally fight you. Any time, anywhere.”

“Jenny, please stop…” Emma said, glancing around for her parents—they unfortunately weren’t in the room right now.

“Huh?” Jenny glanced at Emma in confusion. “I thought she was causing everyone trouble?”

“She is!” one of the other cats in the group shouted. “Deck her in the schnoz!”

“That’s what I like to hear!” Jenny said, giving a wink to the cat who had said that.

Judit hissed. “I simply cannot be bothered to fight you. I’d ruin my precious coat!”

“Ooooh, someone’s vain,” Jenny said with a laugh. “But also terrified.”

“I am not afraid of you, pipsqueak!”

Jenny blinked. “A cat calling me a pipsqueak… I mean… not exactly new but still hilarious every time it happens.”

“I am not funny!”

Several of the kids in the circle laughed.

“Seems like the crowd disagrees,” Jenny said, winking at them all. “What do you all think I should do?”

“De-escalate the situation before someone gets hurt,” Amaris deadpanned.

Jenny put her hands on her hips. “Really? Amaris, come on, you know me, I’m invincible.”

“It’s not you I’m worried about.”

Something inside Judit snapped. “I am not weak!” She charged Amaris, claws outstretched.

Jenny pulled back a fist, grinning.

“Enough!” Coleus said, summoning vines from her hands and wrapping up both Jenny and Judit. “This is a party, stop fighting.”

“You put them down!” One of the adults shouted.

Coleus did as instructed immediately as the man marched over. “You were going to let them fight each other, and only talk when I step in to stop them?”

The man opened his mouth clearly to shout angrily, but Coleus cut him off.

“You should be ashamed of yourself, standing by and letting this happen. I did what you would not, at risk to myself for daring to touch the children in a forceful manner. You had the power to simply speak a word and break it up, and yet you watched. All of you watched.”

The man looked around. With a grunt, he turned his back and walked away.

Coleus turned to Jenny and Judit. “Jenny, that was stupid.”

“It—”

“Think about the societal consequences!” Coleus huffed. “We’re here to show people that we’re people, not give them reasons to hate us! And you…” Coleus turned to Judit. “Jenny is a magical immortal warrior who could break you in half with a snap of her fingers. You could have seen that, but your pride got in the way. You do not control this situation. Leave.”

“You can’t tell me what to do.”

“I’m Coleus of the Strider. You’ve seen me on the news. I very much can.”

Judit’s eyes widened as she realized Coleus was right. “Wh—what in the…?”

“Leave,” Coleus demanded.

In a panic, tail standing on end, Judit scrambled out of the house as fast as her four legs could carry her.

“…I should have told her to ‘leaf,’ “ Coleus said with a shrug and an awkward smile. “Ah well. Now that that’s taken care o—”

She was shocked to suddenly have all the kids cheering for her, shouting. Some had even broken down crying happy tears.

“Um…” Coleus blinked. “I…”

“You humiliated her,” Amaris said. “She’s been untouchable by everyone here, and no one tries to stop her. They have never seen her show weakness. And you did it without beating her up.” She glared at Jenny.

“I wouldn’t have broken anything!” Jenny protested.

“See my face? This is me doubting you.”

“Oh come ooooon Amaris, I can be delicate!”

Amaris continued to give her the ‘doubting’ face.

As Jenny and Amaris got further into their argument, the rest of the kids started chanting Coleus’ name.

“I-I didn’t really do anything!” Coleus said, waving her hands back and forth. “I just…”

“Coleus! Coleus! Coleus!”

“W-well okay, uh… “ Coleus caught sight of Emma looking at her, a big smile on her face. Emma nodded—this was exactly what they needed.

“What happened out here?” Mr. Richardson said as he and his wife emerged from a hallway.

“Coleus stopped a bully from fighting Jenny,” Irene said, taking a drink. “And… it… was awesome. The kids love her.”

“…We didn’t invite any of the bullies…”

“The… cat showed up herself… claimed hers must have gotten lost in the mail…” Irene glanced at her drink. “This is stronger than I was expecting, oh boy… I think I forgot I was supposed to drive…”

“Hmm…” Mr. Richardson looked at Coleus’ celebratory position in the midst of all the kids. His frown deepened.

~~~

Eventually, it was time to open presents. Emma had a small mountain of them, but most of them were tiny little trinkets. Emma didn’t complain—getting a lot of presents wasn’t really the point of the party in her mind, it was just a bonus. Though she was going to have to figure out how to display all these little trinkets, the cabinets in her room were getting kind of full of all the random things… books were easy, they could be shelved away, and all the snacky gifts would only take up space temporarily.

It came time to open Amaris’ present.

It was a square box, roughly the size of Emma’s head. The wrapping was strangely rough in Emma’s hands, and it was so black she couldn’t even see a glint on it. Unusual symbols made out of red foil lined the edges of the box. It felt so… ominous, as she held it.

Emma noted that Amaris was looking at her expectantly. Oh boy… she took a deep breath and slowly opened it—the wrapping didn’t even have to be torn, all she had to do was undo a ribbon. Inside the box was… a book. A book that was far smaller than the box itself.

Princess Patty and the Prismatic Castle.

Emma gasped. “Amaris! You… thank you!” She pulled the book out and held it close to her chest. “I never expected you to get me a ‘prissy princess’ book!”

Amaris chuckled. “Hey, I knew you’d like it, that’s all that matters, right?”

“Thanks! Really, I…” She flipped through the pages just to make sure there weren’t any secrets. “Why the box…?”

“Oh, that’s for everyone else’s benefit. Surely the ‘weird kid’ is going to get you something ‘interesting,’ right? You can keep the box, by the way, Dad and I made it. Mostly Dad.” Amaris coughed.

Emma pulled Amaris into a big, tight hug. Amaris didn’t complain, though she did have a hard time breathing for a few seconds.

“I hope the book’s good,” Amaris said.

“Oh, even if it’s not, it’ll still be fun! Anyway… lots of presents to get through.” She picked up the round leafy object from Coleus. “…This is gonna be the weird present, huh?”

“Abso-lute-ely,” Coleus said. “…I should carry around a lute…”

“Do you even know what a lute is?” Chert asked.

“It’s, uh, a flute-like instrument?”

“NOPE!” Bird squawked.

“It’s a stringed instrument,” Chert said. “And one that’s not exactly small.”

“Oh.” Coleus blinked. “The more you know…”

“How do I open this?” Emma asked, poking at the leaves.

“Just tear the leaves off. They’re edible, if you like cabbage.”

“They’re edible even if you don’t like cabbage,” Vayvaresi said.

Emma opted to dig into the present with her teeth since apparently that was an option. It… tasted like cabbage. She didn’t know what she was expecting.

Inside was a little flower in a pot. The pot was also a plant of some kind with thick, orange leaves that formed a bowl. As Emma lifted her finger to touch the flower, it moved, and the petals changed colors from blue to pink.

“Woah… what kind of plant is this?”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Engineered it myself,” Coleus said. “It’s two plants, a pot-unia and a clower. Color-flower.” Coleus beamed excitedly. “It shifts color due to environmental stimuli and adjusts its position. Caring for it is simple, just water it once a day and leave it on a windowsill. Both the pot-unia and the clower live off the same soil.”

“Woah…” Emma ran her finger along the edge of the clower’s petals, prompting the parts she touched to flash purple. “Amazing… thank you!”

“Told you the presents would be fine,” Emma caught Irene tell her parents. Emma glanced up, finding that both of her parents looked a little embarrassed. Looks like Amaris’ box did its job. Maybe now they’ll see how silly they’ve been. …One step at a time…

Emma opened the presents from her parents last. Naturally, there were quite a few of them. Some dolls, tickets to the Cat-ival, a book about some boring practical topic Emma forgot about the moment she put it down, and a little toy that ate things.

It looked like a monkey. She opened its mouth and put a coin in it, watching the coin vanish into the darkness. She shook the monkey, hearing no clanking. “Huh, Amaris, want to try to figure out how this thing works later?”

“Maybe, though Coleus is the engineer,” Amaris said.

“What? I’m no…” The moment Emma offered the toy to Coleus she snatched it up and started examining how the hinge in its mouth worked. “This proves nothing.”

Emma continued opening the last few presents, the last of which was just a nice card from her parents telling her how much they loved her. She immediately set it down and went to hug them. “Thanks for the party. I… are you okay with it?”

Her mom looked over at the various strange guests. Amaris and Jenny were having a little conversation and giggling like little kids. Coleus had put the eating toy down and had started covertly investigating Emma’s other mechanical presents, especially the toy car that moved on its own. Vayvaresi had jumped onto Irene’s shoulders and was looking like she was about to take a nap. Irene, meanwhile, looked like she was about to fall over from the weight but wasn’t complaining.

Mrs. Richardson put on a sad smile. “You had something to do with this, didn’t you?”

“Y-yeah… I did ask her to go all out…”

“It’s certainly been an eye-opener,” Mr. Richardson said, crossing his arms. “You’re quite the clever little girl, you know that?”

“Please, Amaris is much cleverer.”

“But this was your idea, wasn’t it?” He ran his hand through her hair. “You’re a little genius too.”

“Our little genius,” Mrs. Richardson said.

“Mom, Dad…” Emma put her hands behind her back. “Stop it…” she giggled.

The family embraced. Richard stopped playing his bass and came over as well, joining the family.

A short distance away, Taylor smiled. “Good. I think it’s working.”

“Eh?” Amaris said, looking up from her conversation with Jenny.

Taylor gestured at the family hug. “That, Amaris, is progress.”

“I thought they were a happy family already?”

“The fact that they’re still like that even with all this nonsense you’ve brought… progress.”

“I thought we were trying to make them uncomfortable?” Jenny asked.

“We were trying to get them to see that the weird and unusual isn’t bad,” Amaris said. “I think Taylor’s right, this is the first step.” Amaris frowned. “Though if it takes this much effort just to make a tiny dent in someone who has a vested interest in liking us…”

“Any progress is still better than it was before, wouldn’t you say?” Taylor asked.

“I… you know what, good point.” Amaris beamed. “It’s gone well!” She lifted up a glass of punch as though she were making a toast. “To progress!”

“Amaris,” Orville said, suddenly appearing to her side. “We’ve got something unusual.”

“Eh?” Amaris asked, looking up at him.

“I can access the memories of that toy that eats things.”

“I thought you could only access the memories of people?”

“Exactly.”

Amaris’ eyes widened. “…Let’s see if we can deal with this…”

~~~

“Why is that the toy you girls are the most obsessed with?” Emma asked, coming over to Jenny, Coleus, and Amaris looking at the monkey. “It’s just a fancy piggy bank.”

“Orville can access its memories,” Amaris said. “He shouldn’t be able to do that. Also, watch.” She picked up a metal fork that was significantly longer than the monkey was tall and opened its mouth. She was able to drop the entire fork in. “It’s bigger on the inside.”

Emma blinked. “Huh… Mom and Dad got me this, though… hey! Mom!”

“Yes?” Mrs. Richardson asked as she passed by.

“Remember where you got this?”

Mrs. Richardson tapped her chin. “I believe I picked it up last week, it was one of the toys on display at the store and I thought you might like it. Interesting, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps more interesting than it should be,” Amaris said, demonstrating once more that she could stuff an entire fork into it and it wouldn’t come out.

Mrs. Richardson blinked. “That’s…”

“It’s unusual,” Amaris said. “Probably not dangerous, though, but It sure isn’t an ordinary object.”

“Wh-what should we do with it?” Mrs. Richardson stammered.

Amaris shrugged. “Don’t stick your finger into its bottomless maw? Orville’s currently digging around its memory, trying to find more information, but it doesn’t appear to be malevolent. So far, anyway.”

The conversation seemed to deeply unnerve Mrs. Richardson. “I think I still have the packaging it came in… give me a moment.”

“That might help a lot, thanks!”

Emma stared at Amaris as her mother walked away. “Amaris, do you know what this means?”

“What?”

“She trusts you to deal with the strange stuff.” Emma broke out into a grin. “You’re the most qualified person here to deal with this!”

“It’s just a toy with a bottomless stomach and memories,” Amaris said. She watched as Jenny poured an entire cup of punch down the monkey’s throat. “You know, Jenny, if you upset it and it tries to eat you…”

Jenny brutally bit off a chunk of her finger and threw it into the monkey’s mouth.

“Jenny! Ewwww!” Emma squirmed.

“I have now given it a taste for human flesh, we should all be terrified,” Jenny deadpanned.

“You really do have no impulse control…” Amaris said with a shake of her head.

“And once again there are no consequences!”

Mrs. Richardson came back with the packaging the monkey was in. It was plastic and had very few identifying marks aside from the toy’s name, The Nommer. There was also a company name, Wingding Curiosities, and a website—but no address. Inside was a small booklet that was an instruction manual, but it was done like a little storybook about The Nommer’s Journey that demonstrated how exactly to get the toy to eat various things. There was even a cartoonish diagram about how to cut up a mouse in order to make it small enough.

“Egh…” Amaris said. “Why do they tell you exactly how to do all of this?”

Coleus shrugged. “Entertainment, it seems.” She flipped through the booklet. “Since it’s a story it does make it quite hard to find anything… instructions? More like in-story-ons.”

“Maybe the story will tell us more about how it was made, or how it works…”

“So far, no.”

Orville appeared, looking very haunted.

Amaris tensed. “How bad is the danger?”

“It’s not danger, it’s…” Orville sat down, a hand to his head. “I went back in the memory, found… it was too terrible, Amaris. That used to be a person. I… I don’t know if it was a man or a woman or human or something else, because I have to pass through this… horrible memory… of being chopped up into pieces and not being allowed to die… being stuffed into a shell…”

Amaris looked at the monkey with newfound horror. “Is it… in pain?”

“Now? Only emotionally, physically… it can’t feel anything. It can only watch.”

Amaris relayed the information to everyone else and turned back to the monkey “I’m… not sure if you can hear us, but we know about your problem. I’m… not sure what we’re going to do with you, but we’ll find who did this to you.”

“Who… would turn someone into a toy?” Emma asked.

“Wingding Curiosities, apparently,” Jenny said.

“We should check out their site later…” Amaris turned to Orville. “Have you found anything that can tell us about who did it?”

“The memory is colored by so much pain and agony it’s basically impossible to make anything out. It… it overloaded my senses. After that, all I see is it sitting on the shelf in that store before Emma’s mother comes and picks it up.”

“There’s got to be some more information we can get…”

~~~

Judit had lost.

She could not accept this.

She needed to get back at them. Who cared if one of them was Coleus, the dryad of the Strider? She could do it. Yes… all she had to do was wait to find a moment of vulnerability, capitalize on it, and then walk away because she was “just a kid” and nobody would really punish her. Except maybe that Jenny girl… but she would be restrained.

I’ll teach them to make fools out of me…

Judit snuck around the outside of Emma’s house and carefully put her head to one of the windows. It was open a crack, allowing her to take in not only the sights but also the smells and the sounds of the party within. She watched Coleus very closely.

Watched as Emma handed her the monkey.

Maybe that…

But while Coleus played with it for a while, she quickly put it down and went to look at other things. Judit hissed inwardly—that would have been such a perfect target! Destroy something she liked. But no, it was not to be…

…or so she thought. But it was not much longer until Coleus, Amaris, and Jenny were all around the monkey, playing with it. Making it eat silverware. Taking notes…

It’s some kind of magic, Judit realized. That must be amazingly precious to freaks like them. She grinned. Oh, how easy this is going to be. Judit knew how to be stealthy when she wanted to be, she just so rarely did. Today, however, was the time to get close without anyone noticing. She kept her head down, navigating mostly by her ears and her nose. She jumped through the window, landing behind a pile of opened boxes. Then she carefully slinked around the room, slowly, carefully—looking like just another one of the cats at the party. With her face down, nobody would think to look at her twice, for she was a very normal cat in appearance.

Amaris, Jenny, Coleus, and now Emma were so heavily invested in the monkey they had basically no chance of noticing her coming. Amaris was even talking to the air! How ridiculous, they were clearly all mentally deranged.

Good. Such people were much easier to hurt. They’d probably become unreasonably attached to this monkey.

She jumped up on the table, revealing herself. Everyone looked at her in confusion.

She bapped the monkey off the table. “Oops.”

It hit the ground, shattering.

“JUDIT!” Amaris shouted. “Y—”

As Judit was reveling in the rage coming from Amaris—and secretly hoping Coleus would break down in tears or something—a black sphere erupted from the remains of the monkey. The orb shot into the air and created a massive gust of wind all around it. Judit had no way to resist as she was pulled right into the darkness. She didn’t even have time to register what was happening until her body was already being stretched out like a noodle without breaking anything…

…she landed awkwardly in a puddle of punch, but on her feet. She was quickly knocked off her feet by the addition of Amaris, Coleus, Jenny, and Emma right on top of her, followed quickly by several other kids, including Chert and Ralph, among others. Not a single adult came through.

“Get off me!” Judit shouted.

“I oughta keep you pinned for eternity!” Jenny shouted. “You might have just doomed us all, idiot!”

“I am not an idiot!”

“You just destroyed a magical artifact and sent us…” Jenny looked around. “Where the heck is this…?”

Everyone slowly stood up to find themselves standing on top of a giant pile of junk. Everything that they had fed the monkey was here—forks, spoons, a coin, Jenny’s finger, the punch… but that was far from the only thing here. There were bones of every shape and size, rusting car parts, huge metallic spikes, couches in various states of disrepair, unidentifiable green slime, and even a few refrigerators, all in states of disrepair.

There was no sky. Instead, above them, they could see in the distance even more junk, somehow arranged as a cavern all around them. Impossibly, they could see it all, despite there being no visible light source anywhere; and yet the sight was only barely, for everything was dark and muted in color, like a night lit only by a crescent moon.

The smell was of rusted metal and bone mixed with sugary sweets and snacks that had been taken through by the party.

“Okay everyone!” Amaris shouted, standing to her full height. “Listen to me, we’ve got a situation here, and we need to be careful! Ralph, Chert, Jenny, you’re our muscle, take up positions around the edge of the group, watch for anything that might be a threat. Everyone else, try to save as much food as you can, we have no idea how long we’re going to be down here. Colues, I think I know the answer to this question, but I’m going to ask anyway—can you grow anything here?”

Coleus shook her head. “I… have no connection to the Lost Glen, and I have no seeds on me. Unless you can get me a living plant… and even then there probably wouldn’t be enough nutrients.”

“Right, if anyone finds any seeds or plants, bring them to Coleus, she can do things with them. And…”

“Who made you in charge!?” Judit shouted. “You… you’re a nobody! You—”

“I can’t waste resources dealing with you right now. Jenny, sleep her.”

“With pleasure!” Jenny said, pulling back her fist and surrounding it in a periwinkle energy. “Sleepy fist time!”

Judit’s eyes widened as she realized she was about to get punched. “My parents wi—”

She was out like a light.

~~~

Irene saw the entire thing play out. She watched as the void sphere appeared and started sucking everything in. The wind was only strong very close to the sphere, but it still sucked in a dozen or so kids and an entire table of snacks.

“Oh no…” Irene managed not to drop the glass she was holding—it wasn’t alcoholic, it was just strawberry soda. She was still slightly buzzed though and was currently cursing herself inwardly for this since now was definitely not the time to be that way.

While she was doing this, Vayvaresi was waking up and the rest of the partygoers were staring in shock at the black orb sitting in the middle of the house, sucking in loose papers and dust even now.

“Emma!” Mrs. Richardson shouted, making a break for the vacuum sphere.

“No!” Irene grabbed Mrs. Richardson by the collar and pulled her back. “Do you want to get sucked in too!?”

Irene was not strong enough to keep Mrs. Richardson back, but her husband lent his hand to the efforts as well and the two of them managed to pin the sputtering woman to the wall.

“Emma… Emma…”

“What’s… going on?” Vayvaresi asked—barely holding onto Irene’s shoulders from the whole ordeal.

“Judit destroyed the monkey that eats things, summoned a void sphere, sucked in Amaris and the others,” Irene said.

“Monkey that eats things…”

“…I’m afraid I wasn’t paying enough attention to that one…”

“We… we got her that present…” Mrs. Richardson burst into tears and went limp.

Her husband and Irene released her.

“Okay…” Irene said. “We need t—“

Suddenly, a man’s hands were around her neck. “You did this!”

Irene gagged.

“Give me back my kids!”

Irene held out a hand, but Vayvaresi acted before she unleashed her ability, jumping off of Irene and slamming her paws into the man’s face. He was so shocked by the kitsune that he released Irene.

“Back off,” Vayvaresi said, letting out a growl and glowing slightly.”

“I knew they were no good!” a woman shouted.

“Look what this magic has done to our kids!”

“You should pay!”

“And it appears as though my curse is back in full swing,” Vayvaresi said, glancing back up at Irene. “Do you feel an uncontrollable urge to throttle me?”

Irene paused. “I d-don’t think so?”

“Ah, but you are scared of me.”

I’m always scared of everything always. “I-I d-don’t know…”

“Everybody shut up!” Taylor shouted. “We need to figure out how to get them back, not how t—”

“Your own brother is in there!” a woman shouted. “Don’t you care about him!?”

“You’re being unreasonable!”

“You’re the one not seeing the threat right in front of you!”

“I need to leave,” Vayvaresi muttered. “I’m making this all go south…” She tried to jump to the front door—but found that the human children were blocking her way.

“You took our friends away!”

“You monster!”

“You don’t get to run away!”

“Kids! What are you doing!?” an adult cat shouted. “She…”

“And now you’re defending her!?” a man yelled, getting in front of the cat and crossing his arms.

“What’s come over you…? You’re not… like this!”

Orville appeared in Irene’s perceptions while all the shouting was going on. “Irene, Amaris and the others are fine. They’re looking for a way out as we speak.”

“G-g-good…”

“Irene?” Orville waved a hand in front of her eyes. “Shouldn’t you tell that to everyone?”

“I… y-y-y-yes I…” Irene couldn’t stop staring at Vayvaresi. Was she… always that large? Always so… ominously glowing? Those tails looked so aggressive, and…

“Irene!” Orville removed Vayvaresi from the memory. “You need to tell everyone!”

“What’s… that curse is insidious…” Irene took in a sharp breath. “EVERYONE! Emma and all the kids are fine!”

Mrs. Richardson looked up. “H-how can you…?”

There was no kitsune to fear. “Orville can still go to their m-memories! H-he can talk to them.”

“Orville!” Mrs. Richardson stood up. “How is Emma doing? How…”

Orville left Irene’s memory and she could see Vayvaresi again, and the paralyzing fear returned. “V-v-vay…”

“You are forgiven, do not try to push past it now,” Varvaresi snarled, drool dripping onto the ground and letting off steam. “I will not rush through those kids; hopefully, this news can keep everyone distracted long enough…” Irene could see what would happen if Vayvaresi went through those kids and tore them limb from limb, devouring them.

Mrs. Richardson let out a loud sigh of relief. “I am so—thankful—what in—oh yes…”

Orville was back with Irene and Vayvaresi was gone. “This is quite a pickle, I can only alter memories of one person at a time, and I think the murderous intent toward Vayvaresi grows with time…”

“Her curse… r-rarely kills her,” Irene said. “It’s… p-probably fine… s-so… Orville, what do we do?”

“I don’t know, unless you know how to mess with a vacuum sphere?”

~~~

At this point, most of the kids were crying, and the younger ones were calling for their parents. Some of these could still be useful in the survival effort—such as Emma, who despite her tears was still organizing all the food that had come through with them—but there were still a ton of kids who were nothing more than potential targets for whatever lurked in the piles of junk.

Amaris’ primary goal was to keep them safe. She was already feeling the pressure of having let some of them get injured—a few had fallen on sharp objects when landing the first time, but she couldn’t use any magical healing and was having to live with whatever materials were lying around.

Amaris’ actual crew was scrounging for such materials. Chert, Ralph, and Jenny were all handling the situation rather well—Ralph looked somewhat relieved, even, as the rest of his posse could actually be convinced to not follow him around everywhere. There were a few other volunteers to be “defenders” but these had quickly become “searchers,” scouring the junk for anything they could find.

Amaris didn’t want to call it yet, but there didn’t appear to be any monsters in here. In fact, all the reports she got indicated that there was nothing living here at all. Evidence of living things, such as bones, sure, but nothing growing, not even mold.

Amaris realized that this probably meant that all the bones were from creatures who had fallen in here and starved to death. However, there still could have been robots around, murderous robots, so she wasn’t convinced it was safe yet.

Besides giving out orders and making sure everyone was at least marginally okay, Amaris was reading the Nommer’s instruction manual, hoping for any hint as to what to do here. The problem was it was so long and convoluted that how much of it was story and how much of it was actual features was a big mystery. She’d just have to read the entire thing all the way through, and a quick skim hadn’t helped her any.

So much of this is obsessed with how to properly prepare things for eating… Amaris thought.

“Amaris, back from the loop!” Jenny said, dropping a literal treasure chest filled with bronze coins in front of her. “I found something sweet!”

“We can’t make much use of treasure with nobody to buy anything from,” Amaris said.

“But if we get out of here…” Jenny started stuffing coins into her pockets.

“Careful, that they aren’t cursed or something.”

“That’ll just make it more fun.”

Amaris sighed but didn’t say anything. “Any sign of anything edible?”

Jenny shook her head. “I found some gauze to help Coleus patch up wounds, but no food aside from some salt. And we can’t live off salt.”

“No…” Amaris glanced back at the table of food. “That’ll last us… I don’t know, a day or two at maximum rationing, and the food in my backpack can maybe go another day. This is a very generous estimate. After that… a bunch of scared, starving kids…” She shivered.

“I… have thought of a solution to that.”

“You have?”

“I’m an infinite supply of meat, aren’t I?”

Amaris felt like she wanted to puke but she held it down. “Jenny…”

“It’s not like I’m unwilling to chop off my own leg a hundred times.”

“Let’s… consider that as a last resort.”

“Will do.” Jenny headed off to give Coleus what she needed.

Amaris continued to flip through the booklet. It described the Nommer trying to devour itself but being unable to do so. Amaris frowned—the parts of the monkey toy had been found, they were sitting on the table next to Emma. So the toy could eat its parts… but this likely referred to the vacuum itself, which was still presumably in Emma’s house.

Amaris got an idea. Next time Orville showed up, she could ask him to ask the others to throw them food through the opening. That would be much more preferable than living off of Jenny.

“Hey Amaris,” Ralph said, dropping a metal briefcase in front of her. “Found something useful.” He popped it open. Inside were two guns, though there was room for four. The guns were extremely shiny and glowed a bluish-green on top. “Watch.” He picked one up and shot it at a nearby metal chair, vaporizing it instantly. “We can defend ourselves with this.”

“Good,” Amaris said. “You take one, give the other to Chert. Jenny doesn’t need one.”

“What about you? You can have mine.”

Amaris shook her head, pulling out her crossbow—which Pitch was currently slithering around. “I have my weapon.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Be careful with that gun, Ralph!”

“Sure.” He stumbled a bit as he made his way to Chert.

Amaris continued to read, finding a section on how the Nommer was a great way to hide evidence of… drugs? Wasn’t this supposed to be a kid’s toy? She was also pretty sure that encouraging people to break the law in this manner was against the law… but she didn’t know the exact regulations for manuals. Maybe that’s why this was a story rather than a proper manual, to get around some legal loophole…

“A-a-amaris?” a very young cat asked, walking up to her.

“Yes?” Amaris asked.

“C-c-can I have some c-c-crackers?”

“Not right now, we have to ration our food.”

“B-b-but I’m hungry…”

“I know,” Amaris said. “But we don’t have a lot of food, w—”

The kitten burst into tears.

Amaris sputtered. “Look, crying isn’t going to fix anything, and, uh…” You can’t let him have it, this is a survival situation, live with the tears. You also aren’t good at dealing with this… “Emma!”

Emma, sniffing, came over. She didn’t even have to ask what she needed to do—she picked up the kitten in her arms and started petting him. “There there… it’ll be okay, Amaris will get us out of this…”

The kitten nuzzled Emma’s chest. His crying became less intense, but it did not go away.

“Thank you,” Amaris mouthed to Emma. Emma, face wet, red, and ugly, nonetheless shot her friend a sad smile and nodded in acknowledgment. She took a few steps away, giving her full attention to the kitten. The food was mostly done being sorted, so this was no problem for her.

What was a problem was that she wasn’t looking where she was stepping. Her shoe landed on a chair that was very precariously balanced. It shifted. With a scream, Emma fell. Amaris, for all her reflexes, was not fast enough to catch her and the kitten.

Chert, however, was right there and caught her in his arms. Emma stared up at him in wonder.

“You alright?”

“Y-yes…”

Amaris let out a sigh. “Oh brother…” Admittedly, she had kind of been hoping Emma would forge a connection to Chert, that was one of the reasons she’d brought him over despite not knowing him really at all. But if this dumb, cliché, stupid moment…

Amaris stopped herself, she really shouldn’t be concerned with that at all, it was frivolous.

“Maybe now she’ll stop trying to follow me around so much.”

Amaris jumped. She hadn’t noticed that Ralph had returned. “Uh… maybe?”

“It’s nice. You don’t treat me like everyone else.”

“Well, that’s because I don’t get… sports.”

“Yeah.”

“Um… shouldn’t you go back on patrol, looking for things?”

“Right away, Amaris.” With a salute, he scrambled off.

Weird guy… still don’t see what Emma sees in him.

Amaris returned to her reading. All thoughts of the interactions of the last few minutes left her mind as she saw the Nommer in the story regurgitate an object it had eaten earlier. How did it do that? Amaris flipped back and found out that the Nommer had made… a hand gesture. One that was not described, but it was illustrated, but the illustration gave no indication whatsoever that it was a hand gesture for regurgitating an item.

But that gesture had simply regurgitated the first item it had eaten.

Amaris looked around at the seemingly endless pile of junk.

Did all of this count as stuff that had been eaten? If so, this was going to be… a problem. Where would they put it all?

Amaris made sure to flip through the rest of the book, looking for any other hand gestures. There were none, there was however a vague warning at the end about if the toy was ever broken, you better run.

Oh, gee, how helpful.

Amaris was starting to form a plan in her head. She closed the instruction manual and went to the table, not to examine the food, but the broken pieces of the toy. One of those pieces was a little reddish-brown jar that had been inside, presumably holding the vacuum somehow before it had been busted open.

“Coleus, do you have any idea what this is made out of?”

Coleus examined it. “Not at all.”

“We need to figure it out. If we’re going to get out of here…”

~~~

“I should call the police,” Mrs. Richardson said.

“Do you really think that’ll do anything?” Taylor asked.

“Well, we haven’t heard anything and I have to do something! I can at least call it on the rabid beast that is in my house!”

Irene pressed her hands together, trying to ignore the sound of bones cracking in kitsune teeth her imagination was playing over and over again. “V-vayvaresi is c-cursed, w-w-we don’t want t-t-t…”

“You want to! I can see it in your eyes!”

“Y-yes, b-b-but c-cur…” Irene’s will was not sufficient to keep talking in defiance of the horror being driven into her spirit by Vayvaresi’s presence. She started to tremble. She placed a hand on a wall and… wait, could she use the ability on herself? Could she… force herself to be happy and not absolutely terrified? She…

The horrified thought of her turning herself into a mindless happy zombie who would never want to undo the effect for any reason overrode her desire to not be afraid of Vayvaresi anymore.

If it came to it, though, she could do it to everyone else… except… that would let Vayveresi get away and she couldn’t have that but no she wanted Vayvaresi to get away and…

“My goodness all you humans really are going insane at her presence,” one of the adult cats said, taking up a position next to Vayvaresi. “It is a curse that is doing this to all of you.”

“I don’t trust curses,” another cat said.

“And you think this poor… kitsune likes this curse? No! No, she doesn’t!”

“It’s a curse like that that got our kids taken away!” another cat blurted. “Amaris has one too! She should never have come here!”

“You shut up!” Taylor cried. “She’s a good girl and better than you lot by a large margin! She uses her curse to find dangers and help people!”

“She took our kittens away!”

“Amaris didn’t bring that present, did she!?”

“She should know better—”

“Than to what, be around people and make interesting things happen to them? She should live as a hermit for the rest of time?”

“We lock away people who are a danger to us for a reason!”

“This toy already existed! If it didn’t come here it would have gone somewhere else!”

“But would it have ever been broken!?”

“I…” Taylor paused. “…You want to lock a child away for being a potential danger when she has made it her life’s mission to find these dangers and put a stop to them?”

“I… I just want my kids back!” the cat wailed, covering his face with his paws.

“Have faith,” Vayvaresi said. “Amaris is resourceful, and we have Orville to assist us. We know they are all fine. Do not despair.”

The cat seemed to really hear what Vayvaresi had to say. The humans, meanwhile…

“Brainwasher!”

“Monster!”

“Cretin!”

A man came out of the kitchen with a butcher knife. “I’m putting a stop to this!”

“Don’t!” the cats said, taking up a defensive position around Vayvaresi.

“No, don’t!” Vayvaresi told the cats. “I can handle myself, but the curse, it’ll hurt you!”

“We can’t just let him attack you!”

Vayvaresi let out a sigh. “No… you truly cannot, for you are cursed as well… there will be those called to my aid, only to be slaughtered…”

“Get away from the fox!” the man shouted, brandishing the knife.

Have to stop him, Irene thought. Have to help him.

Taylor looked like she was having a similar internal struggle. Most of the other adults were looking rather nervous.

However… the human kids suddenly became quite angry. With an angry snarl, they rushed the cats around Vayvaresi, biting and clawing. The cats could not bring themselves to fight against children, so the bites and scrapes went unanswered. Nonetheless, the cats surrounded Vayvaresi like a wall, even as their own ears were torn off and the blood began to flow…

“Irene!” Orville said, removing Vayvaresi from her memory. “Stop this!”

“How!?” Irene could only watch in horror as the blood continued to run. “I can’t even…”

“Make them all happy and tell them we have a plan to get everyone back, that should shock them out of it!”

“r-r-right!” Irene held out both of her hands. “Th-th-that’s enough!” Everyone gained smiles immediately, but the children were still fighting and biting, though now they were giggling in the midst of it. The cats, no longer able to feel negative emotion, actually started retaliating.

“W-w-we have a way to get them back!”

“Louder, Irene! Scream it!”

Me? Scream!?

“IRENE!”

“EVERYONE WE CAN GET THEM BACK, JUST STOP!” Irene blurted at the top of her lungs with a pitch so high that one of the nearby wine glasses shattered. Multiple people put their hands to their ears out of reflex—afflicted with happiness though they were, the body did still respond to pain.

This was enough to get everyone to stop.

“Oh, that’s good,” Mrs. Richardson said calmly. “At least… I think so…? I would have really liked it before, but I’m not worried.”

“I’m making all of you happy to avoid a bloodbath,” Irene said. “When I release you later you’ll probably want to murder me for b-b-brainwashing you.”

“Vayvaresi just said something,” Orville said. “ She said ‘I doubt that. They were already being brainwashed by my curse, in a sense.’ I’m not playing the memory for you for obvious reasons.”

“Awkward… thanks, Vayvaresi, I … think?” Irene shook her head. “Anyway, uh, Orville, what’s the plan?”

“We know the hand gesture to make to get them out of the vacuum. However, it will eject things in the order they were placed in, so we need to find a way to move the vacuum so we won’t destroy the house when we do it.”

Irene relayed this to everyone. “How do we move it?”

“I memory hop around until we find out what this material is.” He generated a memory of a red jar. “Which means I need to memory hunt until I figure out what this jar is made of.”

“We need to figure out what a strange material is!” Irene called out. “Is anyone here good at identifying things?”

A cat raised a paw. “I’m a geologist!”

Orville left Irene’s memory and she could see Vayvaresi again. The fear began to rise again.

“Thank you,” Vayvaresi said. Irene thought she could hear blood dripping from her teeth despite there being none at all. “I will be waiting near Amaris’ house.” Now, nobody stopped her from leaving.

Irene let out a sigh of relief. “O-okay, so, uh, anyone have any idea where we could get a wide open space to do this?”

“The junkyard?” Richard suggested.

“…Okay yeah that probably was obvious…”

“I figured out what it is!” the cat said, beaming. “It’s clay mixed with cat blood!”

“…Why on earth would you know that?” Irene asked.

“A friend of mine is an archeologist and one of the peoples that came before Yeshalo liked making pottery out of that, as cats were their slaves and…”

“Okay, okay, that makes sense. Wait.” Irene paused. “If the ancients did this… can we just… take one of these jars from a museum?”

“Absolutely! I can call up my friend if you want!”

“Let’s do that. I’m going to unhappify you, though, just so you don’t sound weird to him.” She raised her hand and removed the effect.

The cat’s tail suddenly stood on end. “You… witch!”

“Y-yes, witch, please just call your friend.”

The cat blinked, looking into space for a while. “He is never going to believe this…”

Irene pointed at the vacuum sphere sitting in the middle of the living room.

“Right, fine, we have enough proof… sure…”

~~~

One hour.

That was how long it took to procure the jar. This particular one was shaped like a cat skull and had relief carvings of dozens of cats suffering in gory, brutal ways.

So long as the jar was larger than the vacuum, it was completely unable to devour it for some reason. So when the vacuum was placed within it could be carried around, simple as that. All they had to do was drive it to the junkyard. This was not a long drive, but it was the majority of the waiting time, the museum had been much closer than the junkyard, which was a few kilometers out of Nuk.

Irene had opted to unhappyify everyone before they started driving. Vayvaresi had been right—the majority of them were thankful that she had done what she’d done, and those that weren’t were pacified by the promise of getting everyone back very shortly.

And so… among a flat plane filled with seemingly endless quantities of trash, they were ready to try it.

Irene set the jar down on the ground. “…We need to open it.”

Taylor picked up a long metal rod from the piles of trash. It had a noxious, rotting apple on the end of it that she had to flick away. With the stick, she tipped the jar over, releasing the vacuum. It flew out and sucked in a few pieces of trash, but not any of the people watching.

“Okay…” Irene said, holding out her hands. “Here it goes…” She folded her fingers into a wave and stuck her thumbs out in different directions. “Release!”

Apparently, the first thing the vacuum had eaten was an entire car. It popped out of the vacuum and dropped to the ground. With a thud. Irene maintained the hand gesture, and the next thing to come out was a toilet brush, followed by three unidentifiable metal squares. With each release, the vacuum moved slightly, making it so it would never suck back in something it had just ejected.

“It’s working!” Irene called. “We just have to keep it up for… who knows, but we’re doing it!”

“But that entire realm is made out of junk…” Mrs. Richardson said. “How long will it take?”

“Amaris had an idea about that…”

~~~

Everyone inside the realm of junk had loaded themselves into a large, extremely old bus.

The plan was simple. The bus would be ejected long before they would, naturally, but it would drag them along if they held onto it. It was a large bus, so they had plenty of room, but it was still quite annoying to have all the kids crying in tight quarters and everyone extremely worried.

They had also spent the last hour reinforcing the bus. All the windows had metal plates affixed to them, The door was sealed shut, and they had made extra sure the bus was on stable ground. Since there was nothing but junk, though, that ground could be removed at any moment, so Amaris really hoped that the reinforcements were enough to keep the bus from being crushed.

She had specifically told Orville not to let the parents worry about this, they would have to deal with the ground vanishing beneath them no matter what, unless they could figure out where the actual oldest object in the entire realm was, and that wasn’t happening. Hopefully, this bus was early.

“They’ve started,” Orville said. “Who knows how long it’ll take to get to this bus, though?”

“Enough,” Amaris said from her position in the driver’s seat. She gripped the steering wheel despite it being completely pointless to do so. A car beneath the bus vanished, prompting the bus to slide into the hole and all the kids to scream. “All we can do is hold out, now…”

The bus shifted again, prompting more screams.

“We’re all gonna die!”

That wouldn’t be very interesting, Amaris thought, but she wisely kept it to herself.

Emma was sitting right behind Amaris, her knees pulled close to her chest. “You… you’ve got this, Amaris.”

“It’s out of my hands now,” Amaris said.

“W-well, uh…” Emma let out a cry as the bus shifted again. “I…”

“I think we’re making it out, though,” Amaris said. “The plan’s solid and it’s already underway, we just have to sit put and wai—”

Something large must have been removed because the bus not only shifted, but it fell a short distance and tilted onto its side. The plating they had installed kept anything from piercing the bus’ interior, but kids still fell on top of each other and started screaming.

“Everyone remain calm…” Coleus tried. “Let me see if there are any injuries…”

Very few people remained calm, but there was also very little they could do even if they weren’t. They had sealed this bust as best as they could, those doors weren’t going to open without Jenny using one of her punches. She wasn’t panicking, she just looked annoyed as a bunch of human children and kittens scrambled all over her in panic. “Yes, run over my face again, it’ll totally help the situation.”

Amaris was now sideways, but still holding firmly onto the steering wheel. She wasn’t entirely sure why she was, but it did keep her somewhat occupied, gripping it tightly. She wasn’t… very afraid, she was more worried about something happening to the rest of the kids than to her, and even that wasn’t very intense fear. It just felt… natural to hold the wheel as tightly as she possibly could.

There was a tremendously loud thud that shook the entire ground and sent everyone in the bus into silence.

“What was…?” Emma asked.

“Something fell from above,” Amaris said. “Something big.”

“…Could something like that crush us?”

“I think the bus is partially buried enough to keep the worst of that at bay, but with all the shifting that’s going on…”

There was a loud clank from somewhere far above them, followed by a bunch of smaller clanks that kept cascading into each other, making more and more and more…

“Everyone get down and brace yourselves!” Amaris called.

“Get down where!?” a cat asked.

“Press yourself as flat as you can!” Amaris called, doing just that—letting go of the steering wheel in the process.

There was no more time for any discussion. The objects from above reached them. Small objects, at first, clattered against the top of the bus like rain, but then larger things slammed into the bus and the surrounding junk at high velocity. Dents began to appear in the bus wall. Glass shattered, but the reinforcements they had put in place kept the shards from going everywhere. Right above Amaris, something slammed into the bus that left a face-shaped dent in it.

Is there something alive down here after all?

That face-shaped dent was quickly replaced by an even larger dent from something round.

Probably not anymore…

Something finally punctured the bus’ exterior: a long metal rod that jutted right through what was currently the ceiling and stopped inches from Chert’s face.

“Wow!” Bird squawked. “Wow!”

“You can say that again…” Chert muttered under his breath.

“Wow!”

The rain of junk from above did not stop after this, but dents stopped appearing in the bus walls. Amaris quickly realized why this was—the junk that had fallen was now forming a protective layer on top of them. They were buried, further junk would not be able to harm them.

Amaris let out a sigh of relief. “Okay, we should be good now.”

“We’re buried alive!” a boy shouted, pointing a finger at Amaris. “You buried us alive!”

“The adults will get us ou—”

“This is all your fault!”

Amaris twitched. Not technically incorrect but definitely not seeing the full picture. “And we’re still going to get home.”

“This is stupid! You’re stupid!”

Amaris pressed her hands together. “And we are now underground in a sealed bus, there’s nothing to do about it now.”

“You… you!” Bawling, he charged her. Very awkward to do in a sideways bus filled with too many kids, but he didn’t care about ease at the moment.

Ralph held out a hand and stopped the boy in his tracks. “You don’t want to do that.”

“R-ralph?”

“Amaris here is saving our lives. Don’t touch her.”

“Why… why do you care?”

Ralph narrowed his eyes and simply stared at the boy, saying nothing. The boy melted and crawled back to the others, pulling himself into a ball and letting his tears fall out.

Amaris nodded to Ralph. “Thanks.”

“People have a tendency to listen to me. For some reason.”

“You’re the sports star,” Emma said. “People love you for it.”

“That’s not really… worth much.”

“Are you kidding? You’re strong, capable, and…” Emma stopped herself. “It’s not what you want, is it?”

Ralph shrugged.

“What do you want?” Amaris asked.

Ralph turned to Amaris and simply shrugged again.

“Ralph, what are you doing?” one of the girls from his posse shouted. “You shouldn’t be downpl—”

“Would you shut up for once in your life?” Ralph spat without even turning his head.

The girl was brought immediately to tears. “Oh no, Ralph, what have I done?”

“Talked too much.”

The girl clapped her hands over her mouth, forcibly keeping herself from letting any words out. She ran back to the other kids usually in Ralph’s posse—but they all immediately turned their backs on her.

Amaris glared at Ralph. “Are those the rules you set up for your friends? Ostracize them for making you upset?”

“Amaris!” Emma gasped.

Ralph shook his head. “They do that themselves. I rarely tell them to do… anything.”

Amaris’ gaze softened. “Ralph… you don’t… have to be there, you know?”

Ralph shrugged noncommittally.

“For a sports star you sure lack a backbone,” Jenny said.

“How dare!” one of the other members of the posse said. “Ralph faces down danger w—”

Jenny lit her fist on blue fire, shutting the kid right up.

Ralph shrugged. “You’re probably right.”

“Yeah, I’m always ri—”

At this point, everything went white.

~~~

The vacuum ejected a bus covered with metal plating and with a metal spike rammed through its side. It fell a short distance, landing on top of all the other junk. However, as it was much larger than the last few things that had been brought out, it slid down the hill with a scraping, grinding sound that made all the cats watching fold back their ears.

Irene stopped making the hand gesture. “That’s it!”

“Emma!” Mr. Richardson shouted, running toward the bus before it had even stopped moving, the rest of his family close behind. Long before they arrived, though, the bus stopped—and Jenny punched the door hard enough to send it flying and careening into a junked car.

One by one, the kids began to emerge from the bus. Some of them were bandaged, but those that were took their bandages off as they left, revealing whatever wounds they’d had were healed now that Coleus was in a place where she could do some actual healing.

Emma emerged and jumped right into the hands of her father. “Dad!”

“Oh Emma, I was so worried…”

“You didn’t need to be,” Emma said through her tears. “Amaris had everything under control…”

The reunions were many, joyous, and tear-filled. There were, however, a lot of kids whose parents hadn’t been at the party, so they just awkwardly congregated in a group to the side. They would have been able to walk back home from Emma’s house, but not all the way from the junkyard.

“Looks like you handled yourself well!” Taylor said as her brother came out.

“I guess,” Ralph said.

“Is that a gun?”

“Oh. Yes. I was made one of the defenders.”

Taylor put a hand on her brother’s shoulder. “Ralph, that’s great.”

“Just me being the strong kid again.”

“I’m going to take that, by the way,” Amaris said, swiping the gun from him. “Gotta lock away all the weird stuff. Hey, Jenny!”

“Yes?” Jenny said.

“Mind going through all this junk looking for anomalous things? I think a being with a face slammed into us while we were falling.”

“Caaaaaan do!”

“Coleus, can you grow a box?”

Coleus nodded, creating a box out of leaves about the size of her head. “This work?”

“Yes.” Amaris put the two guns, the broken pieces of the monkey toy, and the “instruction manual” inside. “Okay, so… now let’s recapture that vacuum.” Amaris rolled up her sleeves, upsetting Pitch’s coiled position around her arm as she set to work.

“Amaris, before you go… work,” Mr. Richardson called.

“Yes?”

“Thank you for… protecting all of them.”

Amaris beamed. “It’s what I do, Mr. Richardson. Thank you for… not blaming me.”

“Your parents should be proud of you.”

“They are. They’re also supremely worried at all times, but they are.” Amaris winked at him. “And… I know you two got Emma that toy. Don’t blame yourselves. The darkness in the world likes to hide, and it’s everywhere. If it wasn’t you it would have been someone else.”

Mr. and Mrs. Richardson looked at her in shock, but nodded in understanding.

“And Emma? Happy birthday!” Amaris struck an exaggerated pose with her hands spread out.

Emma giggled, pulling Amaris into a hug. “It was the worst birthday ever.”

“Obviously,” Amaris chuckled. “Now, all of you need to get rest, those of us who are used to this will take care of the aftermath. …Someone needs to get all these kids home…”

“Hey, wait,” Irene said, holding up a hand. “Are we missing someone?”

“Eh?”

“Judit.”

“Oh, she’s still unconscious. Probably in the bus. Didn’t want to deal with her.”

“Oh.” Irene blinked. “All right then, I guess?”

“Now, where’s that blood jar…?”

~~~

The kids were eventually brought home on a school bus. The searching of the junk pile didn’t turn up many anomalous things, just a few crystals and a set of pool balls missing the 7-ball that continually tried to play themselves without any input from any person. It was very awkward to get all those balls, especially when they tried to launch themselves into random skulls. But they were captured, and everything was taken to the school basement; including the jar that held the vacuum.

That was largely Jenny’s responsibility, though. Amaris went home and found Vayvaresi hiding in a tree. There was a small gash across her face.

“So, you really do need to hang around me,” Amaris said.

“It seems that way.”

“How interesting.”

Vayvaresi rolled her eyes. “The vague application of your curse is far preferable to mine, I have to say. Mine is almost exclusively negative, even when I was the sort to take revenge, the pleasure achieved in the moment was always far lesser than the suffering endured.”

“Maybe I should strap you to me or something so this doesn’t happen again.”

Vayvaresi jumped on top of Amaris’ backpack and curled up on top of it. “Or I could just stay here.”

“I don’t always have my backpack on.”

“It is rarely far from you.”

“True… anyway, come on, there’s something I need to do.” Amaris walked inside and entered her dad’s study, where there was a computer. She cracked her knuckles and logged in, pulling up the site for Wingding Curiosities. They were clearly a toy company that specialized in the strange and unusual, specifically toys that did unique things. Amaris could not find “the Nommer” but she could find a “hyperrealistic brain plush for thinking the bad thoughts away” and “tower of infinite cards” and “the eye that can’t see anything.” Curiously, though, there was no way to order any of the items, they all just said find us at a toy store near you!

There was also no physical address for the company. No information about any employees. Just a list of toys with vague pictures and vague descriptions that were, supposedly, available for people if they went and looked. There wasn’t even a list of stores they stocked!

However, one thing Amaris could find out was the age of the site. It wasn’t new at all, in fact the domain name went back almost to the founding of the Internet in Yeshalo.

Amaris absent-mindedly stroked Vayvaresi’s tail as she investigated this. “How can all of this be so out in the open, and yet people ignore it? It’s just… everyone believed magic wasn’t real, but it’s not that hard to find it. Yet, I was looking before I was cursed, and I couldn’t find anything until Freddloi came along.”

“Someone who found the toy would assume it had some kind of clever trick when it ate things, not that it was magic.” Vayvaresi twitched her nose. “Even you probably would have thought it was just an odd toy.”

“I… like to think I’m smarter than that…”

“People have confirmation bias. They want to believe what they already believe. Even though you believed the incredible could happen, did you believe it could happen in Yeshalo?”

“…No.”

“Your curse simply forces you into situations where it’s impossible to ignore the brute facts of reality.”

“The darkness is everywhere,” Amaris said, frowning. “What kind of world do we live in that my curse never runs out of messed up, horrific things to show me?”

“I don’t have the answer to that question. Maybe you can find it, one day. It would no doubt be interesting to uncover the secrets of reality.”

Amaris chuckled. “Yeah, it would.”