Ashlan and Mena hustled over to Leo's bedroom where a sign hung in the door. It read, "Keep Out: Teenage Wildebeast."

"Why's the door locked?" Mena asked as she turned the knob. "And what happened to May?"

She knocked politely, but no one answered.

"Step aside," Ashlan said and she bounder on the door and screeched. "Big brother! Open up!"

The door creaked open and Leo's beastly eye appeared through the crack. "Er...little sis, bad time."

"What's wrong, you meathead?" Ashlan asked, unafraid of her beastly bro. "Mena told me you were all gung-ho about going after Janus earlier."

An inch of sweat trickled down Leo's exposed forehead. "Yeah well...uh…" he mumbled and Ashlan shoved the door aside.

Leo stumbled backwards and Mena got to see his room for the first time. It was a typical jock's bedroom with his mindball jersey (#0 like his brain, Mena thought) and other memorabilia strewn across the wall. Pinups of beast girls in bikinis were nailed to the wall beside them (he had the same taste as Ashlan, Mena thought). Leo's unmade bed was a total mess with a certain visitor kneeling on top. "May," Mena examined. "Why are you covered in barbecue sauce?!"

The large girl, in spite of her clothes, was dripping in a brown, glazed sauce with the wafting aroma of a steak sandwich.

"Mena," May cried. "It's not what you think. Were simply 'meating' each other for the first time."

Mena's eye twitched. "Why are my friends into so much weirder things than me?"

Ashlan patted her on the back with a smirk. "it's because you're so vanilla."

"Can I help it?" Mena asked herself. "I am a basic witch after all!"

Mena shook her head in disbelief. "Anyway, you guys need to stop fooling around. We saw Janus walking into the woods."

"Great, Mena," May said, "I just need to shower first!"

Mena slapped her palm in her face.

Ashlan rolled her eyes. "After seeing what my brother does in his spare time, I do too."

“There is no time for a shower,” Mena said, and she turned away from her friend's tomfoolery. “If you’re not going to come, I’m leaving you.”

“No, Mena, I want to help you!” May cried, shaking her head and causing the steak sauce to fly across the room and splatter right on Mena’s head.

Mena wiped it off her head and grimaced. “The stakes are much too high for you two to be fooling around.”

“The steaks?” Leo said, licking his lion chops, but Ashlan glared at him with her hands on her hips.

Both Ashlan and Mena turned to go. May glopped herself off the sheets like a goop monster and Leo hurried along too, rubbing his belly along the way. Mena couldn’t even believe how unserious they were taking everything.

By the time the four had departed the Lion’s Den, the seven moons of Dula glowed in the blackened sky like seven candles. Each lined up in a perfect hexagram shape with the final moon at the center. In the crisp, cool night of the Mind Jungle, these moons would have been a true marvel to gaze at from Ashlan’s cozy bedroom, but while that thought entertained Mena, she focused on the mission at hand.

The cul-de-sac ended with several more manors that were under construction and now resembled skeletal frames of the glories behind them. From there, the road became dirt and the woods began.

“Miserable Magicaps,” Mena moaned as she gazed out into the pitch-dark thicket. “I picked the wrong night to want to be brave. Ashlan, Leo? Are there any beasts in these woods?”

The lion folk both placed their hands on their hips and frowned at Mena. Mena giggled nervously. “Sorry, ahem. I mean, are there any monsters in these woods?”

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“When I was a cub,” Leo said, his beastly eyes darkening in the moonlight. “The O’ Possum brothers used to warn about this terrifying witch doctor in the woods.”

The wind chilled Mena’s face as Leo accounted his horrifying tale. “They said that if she ever caught us sneaking around her hut, she’d kill us and then resurrect us with her terrifying night zombie powers. Then we’d be the ones forced to do her chores for all eternity.”

Ashlan clapped her hands proudly, causing Leo, Mena and May all to turn to her. “Good work, big bro. That’s called a narrative, used when writing a work of fiction. I’m happy you retained something from Animantry school, Leo.”

“You don’t think that’s true?” May asked, clasping her gloppy hands nervously.

“Nope,” Ashlan said, with her eyes closed. “When we were in first grade, my class took a field trip to the temple of our ancestors, and there was none of those tall tales in these woods. Now let’s go find bonehead before anyone realizes we’re gone.”

Mena and May hesitated, but Ashlan put her arm around Mena while hover handing May’s sauce drenched body. “The O’Possum brothers were as good at faking lies as they were faking their deaths. There’s nothing to worry about…This might be too soon for me to say, but you can sue me if I’m wrong.”

“We can’t sue you if we’re d-d-dead,” May shivered.

“Well, the crone can bring you back as a zombie and then you can sue me,” Ashlan smirked.

“Point taken,” May said.

Leo put his hand in May's hand and Ashlan put her paw in Mena's. Mena pretended to hold May's sticky hand and together they entered the woods.

It wasn't long before no one could see past their nose. In a jungle world, the brush was even thicker than the Pembroke Woods that Mena used to live in. Without holding each other's hands, they would've been instantly separated from each other. Though maybe that wasn't such a bad thing, May's slopping and glopping around in barbecue sauce was beginning to remind Mena of a giant slug.

"Well…" Mena said, after much trudging through the woods. "I hate to admit it but we're already lost. Where in the jungle could Janus be?"

A burst of light filtered throught the darkness, nearly blinding everyone. Mena screamed loudly not knowing where or who this light was coming from. Once her eyes adjusted, Mena realized the light flickered from a steely lantern...but no one holding it. A whispering, raspy voice echoed in the darkness, seemingly coming from the trees themselves. "I know of Janussss Harvestar…"

"What the huh?" Mena said, "A talking lantern?"

"Follow meeee if you wish to know about herrrr," the voice spoke.

"Uh guys?" Mena asked, "Should we be taking directions from this inanimate object?"

Ashlan shook her head in disbelief. "It's not like we can go back. I can't even see the suburbs from here."

There was a loud chattering sound like a crocodile with hypothermia. Everyone faced Leo who was shivering heavily. "What if it's the witch doctor...I'm afraid…"

Both Mena and Ashlan placed their hands on their hips and Leo's teeth stopped chattering. "I mean, I'm afraid for the sake of my marvelous meatgirl, May."

"Aww," May gushed in her baritone voice. "That's muh man. But we should go, the insects are starting to stick to the barbecue sauce."

The four followed the lantern up a steep hill and down a slope to a strange hut inside a glade. Bone chilling green fog rolled in creating an unsettling aura. Mena's body convulsed as she observed the hut. It was carefully composed of sticks with an enormous leaf for a roof. Skulls and beads hung in the doorway. The lantern made its way to the doorway.

"Where do we go now?"

"Inssssside," the voice said and the lantern flew inside

"So uh….who wants to get eaten in there first?" Mena remarked.

"Not me," Leo said puffing out his chest and eyeing May. "I'm usually the one doing the eating!"

Mena and Ashlan gazed at each other uneasily. Ashlan sighed, "I may as well go inside. I said there was no such thing as the witch doctor and now I've been proven wrong."

"I'll go too," Mena said, "I can't let Sunny go in alone, especially since I suggested we come here."

"I'm coming too," May said, puffing her cheeks to look imposing.

Everyone turned to Leo.

"I'll keep watch!" The cowardly lion jock said, making huge muscles. "No way any scary witch doctors will get past me."

"You're coming too," May demanded and she made a seductive pose while dripping in barbecue sauce. "Or you won't share a taste of my saucy bod later!"

Leo signed. "Yes...ham...I mean ma'am."

Inside, the hut was just as spooky as its exterior. Shrunken heads giggled and chattered to each other as they entered. There were jars of eyeballs and toad livers molding on the shelves and a giant bowl of bones at the very center. The lantern floated beside the bowl, beckoning them ominously.

"Ssssssooo, you want to know about Janussss," and a body materialized holding the lantern. Everyone gasped. It was a brunette woman with a leafy headdress and a grass skirt. A necklace of skulls encircled her neck. She looked about forty of fifty, but her voice was of someone much older and sickly. She kept her at a profile, observing them with her left eye.

"I thought…" Mena said, gulping so loud like she swallowed a jar of eyes. "You knew where Janus was…"

"No…" the witch doctor said in her raspy voice. "I know of Janus… not where she isssss…"

"But why would you know bonehead?" Ashlan asked earnestly.

The witch doctor turned her head to fully face them. Everyone screamed in horror. Half her face was organic and the other half was a hallowed out skull. "I'm the wife of Grimm Harvestar," the witch doctor said, "And the mother of Janus."