“What is it?” Mena asked, not paying much attention to the question.

“An illusion,” the Moonchild began in their wispy voice, “deceives the mind.”

They held their fingers up to their marble eyes, pretending to pinch around them, and miraculously, they held their marble eyes between their fingers.

The child rolled the marbles in the palm of their hand before closing it on them. They magically appeared inside the child’s eye sockets when they opened again.

“A dream,” said the Moonchild, and they opened their hand revealing a large pulsating heart, “tells us what truly lies in the heart, even if it’s hidebound from reality.”

Mena’s eyes fluttered with curiosity. What could the moonchild possibly mean by that?

The heart in the Moonchild’s hands transformed itself into a beautiful iris. “Some things will only be revealed to you while you are dreaming. Especially when the dreams are as pure as yours.”

“So, the door,” Mena began. “Will only be revealed to me in my dreams?”

“Yes,” the Moonchild said.

Mena shook her head in frustration. “But how will I ever be able to find it? It’s not like I can go anywhere when I’m asleep.”

“Can you?” the Moonchild asked, their marble eyes glinting in the moonlight. “Have you ever tried?”

“But how?” Mena asked and she raised her hands with a vacant expression. “It’s not like I can walk around like a night zombie.”

The Moonchild began to float up in their air, their white robe billowing as they rested their head in their hands. “Sleepwalking isn’t just for the living dead. The living can do it too.”

Mena was silent, but her eyes continued to ask, “But how?”

“Let me show you,” the Moonchild said. “Look into my eyes.”

Mena observed their eyes and watched as the designs and patterns inside the marbles swirled like a viscous smoke. She started to feel drowsy closing her eyes, but the colorful patterns continued in the darkness like she had pressed her hands to her eyes. Though she was asleep, her legs were light and continued to support her body. Slowly the world returned, and the translucent moongarden glowed around her. The Moonchild’s voice echoed around her. “You are now guided by the light of the moon. If you search for what lies in your heart, you will find the door you seek.”

**

May stood with her hands to her mouth in fear. She heard Mena call out “kumquats” from the depths of the maze, but there was nothing her and Janus could do. Janus expertly brandished her scythe in a futile attempt to cut away at the force field, but it was to no avail. May was about to call for help when they heard the light step of someone coming out of the maze. “Mena!” May cried as her friend emerged from the labyrinth, but something wasn’t right.

“Janus?” May asked. “What’s wrong with Mena?”

Their friend looked as pale as a white bed sheet, and her eyes were closed tightly. She let out a mumble and a groan from her mouth. “Oh mummy,” May sobbed loudly. “Whatever got her in the maze turned her into a zombie witch!”

Janus’ eyes glistened. “Let me decide that May,” and she walked over to Mena and started checking her pulse.

“Oh Mena,” May wailed, “My favorite friend is dead!”

“Ahem,” Janus said, and she glared at May with her hands on her hips.

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“I still haven’t gotten over the library incident where you made me wet my pants!” May exclaimed.

“Fair enough,” Janus said nonchalantly, as she placed one of her bony fingers on Mena’s wrist. “Good news. She’s still living.”

Mena let out a loud snore, and Janus gave a skeletal grin. “She’s simply sleepwalking, May.”

Mena raised her hand, pointing towards the ballroom, before slowly lumbering towards the entrance.

“I think she wants us to follow her,” Janus said, and she and May quickly followed suit.

May nervously followed her friend through the ballroom, which had thankfully been empty, to the foot of a towering, spiral staircase. Mena started up it and May said, “Which staircase is this? They all look the same to me.”

“This is the staircase to Gemini’s study,” Janus remarked. “I had to go up here once for making all the dead frogs in Carrie’s lab come back to life.”

May panted heavily as she and Janus followed Mena up the stairs. Much to her surprise, Mena, May’s comrade in being unfit hardly broke a sweat. Wherever she was going, she extremely determined. They reached the top of the stairs where they were greeted by a door covered in glyphs and tribal symbols from Dula. “Uh…” May said as Mena headed towards the door. “Do you think we should knock?”

Mena proceeded inside without answer. Janus giggled. “Seems Mena isn’t the master of dream etiquette.”

“I hope we don’t get in trouble for breaking into a professor’s study so late at night!” May gasped, before following her friends inside.

Fortunately for all three of the girls, Gemini was nowhere to be found. Aside from a towering green armchair, a voluminous selection of books, and a bottle of red wine on the side table by the armchair, the place seemed deserted. Even the moving constellations above them had darkened for the night. Mena without a single care, made her way past it into the room full of stained-glass portraits. “Where do you think she’s going?” May asked. “I’ve never even seen this place before.”

Mena ignored the stained-glass windows and walked behind a red velvet curtain that was positioned at the center of the room. “Secret passageway perhaps?” Janus suggested as they followed her.

The room behind the curtain made Janus and May’s jaws hang open in amazement. Everything seemed to be made from a translucent dark blue crystal. The moldings were all carefully cut into crystalline edges, giving the room a mysterious and important aura. However, there was nothing else in the room. It had led them to a dead end. “What now?” May asked, but before she could think about it, her question was answered.

Mena walked to the end of the room, held her hands up to the wall and chanted the words, “Guilded Door that gleams, come before me from out of my dreams.”

The dark room was bathed in a dazzling golden light, reflecting off the crystal walls and radiating magnificently before them. A door made of 34-carot gold materialized out of nowhere and appeared before them. Mena turned around with her eyes wide open and a bright smile on her face. “Girls, we did it,” she said to them, but before May or Janus could utter a word of astoundment, a loud “Ah-hah!” rang out from behind them.

**

Mena was startled for a second by the loud, nasal, and highly unpleasant “Ah-hah,” but as soon as she saw who emerged from the darkness, she narrowed her eyes. Gaia appeared with his fuzzy permed hair and black velvet cape hanging down behind him. “I bet you weren’t expecting me!” Gaia exclaimed.

“Actually,” Mena said with a yawn. “We kind of were.”

“Wha-what?!” The mad professor stammered. “But…but…”

“You’ve threatened me, legally prosecuted me, and attempted to kill me.” Mena said. “In one of my books, you appearing before the golden door would hardly be a plot twist.”

“Curse you, you well-read kiddies!” Gaia exclaimed. “But I bet you don’t know why I’m here and why I’ve been looking for the door. That’s where the intrigue comes from.”

Mena held her hand to her mouth and stretched. “Okay, but it better be good.”

“It will be.” Gaia started laughing evilly and holding his hands outstretched. “For with this door’s ability, I will bring about the end of the world!”

“What?!” Mena stammered. “But why?”

Gaia began to pace the room with a righteous fury burning bright in his eyes. “This involves Prognosticus.”

“That nutty end-of-the-world guy?” Mena asked.

“I knew you’d say that,” Gaia responded caustically. “So many people have called the greatest philosopher of all time, Prognosticus a sham when his end-of-the-world prediction fell through. They called him a bitter old man who wasn’t happy with the way the world was going. As a result, he could never show his face in Growden University ever again and died an outcast from humanity.”

The apocalypse professor spat bitterly as he looked up at Mena. “People call a false prediction, ‘pulling a Prognosticus.’ This great philosopher is now nothing more than a joke and a footnote in history. But I’m here to correct that…I’m here to correct that, or my name isn’t…”

Gaia pointed dramatically at Mena. “Peter Gaia Prognosticus, his great, great, great, great grandson!”

“Gee,” Janus said wistfully. “You’d think Gemini would have done a background check before hiring this nut.”

Gaia balled up his fist and dramatically took a step forward. “Don’t you dare make light of this, bony! Because, let me tell you this, you little girls are the only thing that lies between me and the end of the world as you know it!”