Packing up was so easy since we could loot everything. Geraldine, it turned out, even had a portable washer that when you put clothes in it then closed the lid, just automatically cleaned them. I mean, they were sopping wet, but after a bit of time wringing out the water and carefully holding them in front of the open over door, we had warm and dry clothes. We were going to be so spoiled having clean clothes and cold orange juice.

The downside to having all these awesome appliances was that Geraldine was stuck in here with us. That made me think about the rest of our apartment building. I wondered if the apartment below us had someone stuck in it and I mentioned it.

Geraldine patted me gently and said, "Oh, dear. They moved out last month. That apartment's still empty for renovictions. If that slumlord was staying the night in the place, then he deserved to be spider soufflé. Serves him right for kicking out a young couple with a brand new baby."

I felt so relieved, but then conflicted for a moment because I didn't want anyone to die. Even if he was our scum sucking landlord.

Suze looted everything for us until the entire apartment was bare. I explained to Geraldine how to give Suze and me access to her inventory to make it easier to pass things back and forth. I gave both of them unlimited access to mine.

It felt good to be back in my own jeans and hoodie. I could have used some running shoes instead of bunny slippers, but Geraldine had the world's tiniest feet. So, no go there.

To help with moving the cats, I wore the coolest backpack I had ever seen. It was like a cat backpack condo. Each cat had their own individual little bag including shoulder straps that zipped together. All three made it rather tall, but Suze said she'd carry two of them once we dealt with The Hangman. The cats could look out mesh sides and those could be closed in case of rain or snow.

We had no idea what the weather would be like outside since the abyss had just been dark and stoney. We had to be ready for anything.

When Suze returned with the Hangman, I was happy to see that he just sat in the middle of the cage, focusing on not sliding about and hitting the edges. He wasn't overtly trying anything.

We all moved to the entrance to the apartment. I stood in front of the other two.

I reached out my left hand back to grab Suze's. She gripped mine in comfort. I reached the other hand beside me to Geraldine. She squeezed with her papery thin skin dry against mine.

"Are you ready?"

They both answered, "Yes/Claro."

I let go of their hands and reached out to the door. "Okay, here we go." I took a deep breath, then I turned the handle, and opened the door.

I fully expected an attack in my face, but instead we were standing on what looked to be the landing in front of Geraldine's apartment. The industrial grey carpet went out in front of us and where the apartment door on the other side of the hallway would be, instead was a great vista of a miraculous world.

We stood at the edge of a steep cliff. It cut through the carpet in jagged edges as though someone had just sliced half the building to form rock crags. I stepped out a few steps, testing the solidness of the ground beneath me and it seemed safe so I shuffled out further.

Beneath me was the carpet, but I could feel the solidness of earth underfoot instead of the bizarrely spongy landing floor. What we looked out upon was breathtaking.

It seemed to be early morning. At least looking straight ahead it gave the appearance of a morning sky. Birds flew up in the ether chirping and riding along the wind currents. There was wind. It gusted and I could feel it on my face and smell that clean crisp scent of wilderness, not the wet city cementness I was used to.

To the right the horizon was blocked by a massive mountainous region with cragged peaks tipped with snow. Heading toward it were rocky uplands with smaller mountains and dark, coniferous forests. The sky grew darker there and behind a few of the mountains, smoke curled around and spread out. Even further off, there was a constant red glow like maybe lava or fire?

Foundations of a shattered stone bridge stuck out from our side and it would have cut across to the other side of a ravine but the bridge itself was missing. Where the stone bases anchored, someone had attached a rickety wooden bridge of planks and rope to cross the expanse from one side to the other. A definite death trap of wood almost out of a cartoon.

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"That's a nope for me." Suze said and I looked at her to see that she was staring at the bridge too.

"There. Release me there!" The Hangman pointed at the bridge. "We will go to my Master. See his likeness?"

I followed his finger pointing across to the other side of the ravine and up a rocky hillside where there was a chiseled chinned man's face with a crown carved into the stone. I said, "His cheekbones are so jaunty that they have birds nesting on them." Sure enough, there not only bird nests, but so much bird poop dripping down that it looked like he was crying white tears. If Lord Oberon looked like that, he could be an amalgamation of every 30-to-40-something Hollywood hero. Square jaw. High cheekbones. Narrow eyes. It was unclear about his hairline because his head just formed into the natural rock.

"Birds! Defiling the Master!" He hissed. "Let me free from this cold iron. I will eat those birds for dinner!"

I could then notice a definite path curving up from the bridge formation and up into the hillside. It passed beside the stone likeness and wound up and up until it went around a craggy bend and I couldn't see it again.

There was no way we would be doing that. Suze put The Hangman's cage down far enough away from the edge that it wouldn't topple unless he chose to push himself toward it. With his complaints about the metal, I don't think he could.

She wandered along the carpet toward where the front side of the apartment building would have been. At home, that was a doorway leading to a wide staircase that went down to a landing midway between floors and then downward to the next floor. Here, it was just open to the world. She peered out over the edge of the cliff and beyond her it was very dark.

"Stairs?" I asked somewhat hopeful.

"Não. It's just the abyss below. It goes on for a long time. There is a waterfall down here though." She pointed to the ravine between us and the mountain path. "And a river that way." She then dragged her finger along the line of the ravine and to the opposite direction of the abyss.

I leaned over the edge and could see there was a bottom several stories below. With a meandering narrow river below that did run down to the abyss and water sprayed off into the darkness. In the opposite direction and upriver, there was wide pond created by beaver dam that crossed the river's width. It blocked up the water enough that a pond with giant water lilies and lilypads had formed.

"Release me! We had a deal!"

I ignored him, for now. "Here Suze. See anything? Tsk." I sent all the globes of light toward her and ran them around the corner out of my line of sight. I zoomed out in the minimap to see the markers of the balls moving in darkness.

"Just the side of the apartment building and darkness."

I didn't bother to bring the balls of light back, but when I stopped concentrating on their direction, they flew back to me as if I pulled an elastic band before they dissipated at the end of their duration.

Well, mountains to the right of us. Then I looked to the left following a path that traveled along the cliff that turned into dirt at the point where the back stairwell would have been. They could have just marked the road with a sign that said Queen Titania this way because where the mountains had been all cragged and dark, this area was deep forests almost to the point of jungle and pockets of bright light shining through clouds in a way that would make you think there were dozens of suns all over the sky.

The path weaved downward in a long and easy slope toward the deep forest. The cliff extended along the path and bare earth was streaked with crimson, as if bloody rivulets.

"You've got to be kidding me." I said. "Is this supposed to be subtle?"

The forest itself was just massive and unending. It seemed to stretch past the horizon that way. In between the bands of light, streaks of yellow, green, and blue twirled and writhed. Light filtered over the mixed leaves, dappling different shades of green and dark greenish blue.

Just where the path met the wood was a roadside shrine and I could tell it was vaguely the shape of a woman made from twisting wood. Wood that looked blackened and smoked a little.

"That way is death." The Hangman said ominously.

"We seem to have two paths."

The little man snorted. "Two paths. Two paths. You bested me and I promised to send you true to your fellows so I will tell you where the other path lies. Unless you want to join with my Master?" He flourished at the stone head with the crown.

"There are only two obvious paths."

"No, there is another." He did not point, but looked straight ahead - across ravine in front of the doorway.

"It's at least a 4 story drop."

"Release me and I'll show you."

I stepped toward the edge, not ready to release him just yet. We would. Just I had no idea what he'd do if we did release him. I looked across at the cliff's edge. It didn't seem like there was a path down.

The little man smiled a creepy little smile and motioned to the cage doors.

"Okay. Let's let him go." I said and Suze complied as she unlocked the cages and he jumped out as soon as it opened.

"This way!" He said, running to the edge of the cliff and stopped. He turned to look at me pointedly, then did a strange dancey side step closer to the bridge to the mountain path.

I moved up to where he had stood and didn't really see anything that denoted a trail. Maybe that was the point. Maybe there was an invisible one. "Is this an Indiana Jones thing that we step out and it's solid underneath? Is this a Leap of Faith thing? Okay!"

Before I could step off the edge, Suze grabbed me. "Stop! There's a trail." She pointed down just a bit to the left and indeed there was signs of little trail that clung to the edge of the cliff-face. It was camouflaged a bit from view until she pointed it out.

The little man laughed and he ran off, scurrying across the bridge with uncanny speed and then he raced up the mountain trail.