Down the steps I go and to the living room. Coffee is made, presumably from last night by the mouse creature. Stale cereal has the clear stench of mouse hand. I guess I’ll have to go to the campsite to eat this morning.

The front door is warm under my hand. The morning light is brighter on the porch than usual. I mean, it’s brighter than yesterday but I guess that’s not enough comparison to truly know if it’s actually brighter. Three points make a line, I always say. As in, I always said that when I was taking my trigonometry tests.

“Good morning,” Talis says. He stands at the edge of the porch and leans against the railing.

“Hi.” I sit on the swing.

“I heard you last night,” he says with a smirk. “You were correct.” He pushes off the railing. “You could kill him if he tried to fight you.” Talis wanders over to me. He sits at the far end of the swing. “He will not hurt you though. He is an angry, mangy creature but he is anchored to The Host and tethered to you.”

“Does he write names on the wall?”

Talis nods and adjusts his bracelet, one of many.

“And he doesn’t like you?”

His smirk turns into a grin. He takes a breath in and looks out over the yard. “Levon and Tessa dropped breakfast off.” He gestures to the hood of the car.

A big plate of over-easy eggs, toast slathered with melted butter, and bacon. Mmm. Crunchy, crunchy bacon.

Damn, I miss mom.

I don’t want to sit next to Talis and his bear fur flicking around in the breeze so instead, I sit on the hood, nice and warm.

He sighs. Such a sigher. And walks over to me.

“And I heard you this morning. If Tessa has written the phrase Flectere si nequeo superos, Archeronta movebo, it means she must not be trusted. Do you know of Hell Lions?”

The eggs are hard to chew without a glass of milk to wash them down.

“Hell Lions are Protectors and Leavers are the group which allow the Underworld to open. They come in packs and if Tessa is one, there must be many more. It means she has told the news of my arrival to Siegrist. And therefore, you must train with Siegrist this morning before we leave for we must silence him”

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The lid screeches as I shut it, my appetite gone. “Seems like it’s just conjecture. I don’t know for sure it was the entire phrase, just the first word. Plus, what would Levon even believe me if I told him she was a heck cat?”

“It is hard for a Leaver to distrust his Protector.”

“Heck cat,” I say. “Amusing, right?”

“They wait for you.” He nods towards the trees. “Train and trust I will at the last moment. Then we must go today,” he says. “We must leave.” He motions to the woods I explored the first time I saw him. “We must go in that direction to find the Sewing Tree.”

“Yes, makes sense. Hey,” I say between bacon pieces, “I thought Wisdom was the one that sewed the worlds together not us.”

“You speak true words,” he says. He rests his hands on the car hood and closes his eyes. “Can you feel it, Lyla?”

The hood is warm. I feel that. The bacon is burnt, I feel the grit on the roof of my mouth. I feel the breeze which always seems to be present here. I feel furs gently touching my legs. “Uhm,” I say, picking up my toast, “feel what?”

“The sun,” he says. “She’s nearing.”

“Alright, alright. Sun and seams, Talis. Let’s focus on one wild thing at a time.”

He opens one eye and I swear, if his glare could bore into my soul, it would. “Let us talk seam, then.”

“This is the story of the seam.” He picks up two rocks from the driveway and sets them side by side on the car. “The seam has always been sewed since the beginning of time. Since the beginning of us.” His voice quiets. “A great battle took place in the Big Black Void where the Great Beings, God and Wisdom, live. While one evil distracted them, another pulled at the seam and opened a rip which continues to widen each day, allowing many and great evils to escape from the Underworld.” He pauses and moves the rocks apart. “With each inch of seam ripped open, evils will appear in both our worlds. Once the seam is entirely gone, the ultimate evil with ascend and swallow up our worlds and then it will swallow up the world beyond, above. The Otherside. The Heavens. It will swallow it whole.” He tosses the rocks towards the ground. “Once every soul is devoured, our Great Beings will be in jeopardy. It is up to you and I to sew the seam as Wisdom cannot appear in our worlds. Her and God need so much energy to appear, it will destroy everything they have created. Therefore, she has tasked her first creations with this great task as we are the only ones capable of the feat. The only ones she trusts with all of herself. However,” he says, “we must stop one evil now, then leave immediately before the Hiyulahs track us further. Shadows and other evils know you are here but they do not know I am with you, yet. The sooner we leave, the better chance we can get to the Sewing Tree safely.”

“But they know my Protector is here, so…”

“So, they do not know we are Wisdom’s first creations. They only conject. Then they send Leaver’s to Siegrist to train and discover if the Leaver and Protector are us or not.”

Levon shouts from the edge of the yard while he jogs towards the house. “Yo, Lyla! Siegrist is ready for you!”

Talis grabs my hand. “You will go. You will comply with whatever Siegrist asks of you. Trust I will be near no matter how long he keeps you. Understand,” he says, squeezing my hand tight. “I will be with you.”

Poetic words trickle from my lips. “Why-I mean-nervous. I’m nervous. Why am I so nervous?”

A flicker of his lip, a touch of his bracelet. “You, Lyla, are beginning to remember.”

“Lyla, hurry the hell up!” Levon yells as he leaps onto the porch. “Don’t leave Siegrist waiting, he’ll be pissed!”

Oh my, oh my.