1
As they headed west the next morning, the forest gradually changed, growing older and denser, with huge moss-grown oaks and elms and other varieties of tree no one recognized. The foliage above was so thick that much of their journey passed in cool dimness, though when the wind stirred the leaves, spots of sunlight danced upon the forest floor.
An hour of walking brought them to the river valley Freud had mentioned yesterday. It was a mile across at its top and half a mile deep in the middle, and at its bottom a silver river glimmered in the sun. Tall trees lined the sloping sides of the valley, their leafy crowns turbulent with twittering finches. The valley stretched away to the north and south, offering an unobstructed view for many miles in both directions. Far to the south, pterodactyls flew in lazy circles above the river.
A concrete bridge had once crossed the valley a few hundred feet to the north, but most of it now lay strewn up and down the slopes, the chunks of blacktop occasionally brightened by a stretch of a white line or a few yellow dashes. A few of the bridge’s support columns still stood, their jagged, broken tops towering over the trees on the slope, as did a small section of the bridge on this side of the valley—a forty-foot-long swath of concrete and asphalt that jutted out over the drop like a diving board. They walked over to it and found that a stretch of four-lane highway extended back from the bridge for about fifty feet before dissolving into rubble. A large faded green sign stood next to this fragment of road. It read “Acalangua Tetso Muta—5 km.”
“Anybody recognize the name?” Bob asked, pointing at the sign. “Or the language?”
No one did.
“A better question would be whether or not we can cross the river below,” said Adam. “It looks fairly narrow, but deep.”
“There must be a bridge somewhere,” said Maggie. “The Marauders have to be able to get their wagons across the river.”
“There is a bridge,” said Freud. “All of the original bridges have fallen, of course. But a crude makeshift bridge has since been erected. I crossed it myself.”
“Ah, yes,” said Kukalukl, peering at the silver thread below. “I see it.”
The others peered too but saw nothing.
“Where?” said Bob.
“You have shitty human eyes, so I’m sure you can’t make it out. But trust me, it’s there. It’s a little to our north.”
“Then let us proceed,” said Adam.
It took them an hour to reach the bottom of the valley and twenty minutes to make their way north along the river to the makeshift bridge, which was made of sliding doors from train-cars lain across sections of tree trunks sunk into the river-bottom. The mud at either end of the bridge was a churned-up mess of hoof- and boot-prints. No one else was in sight.
As they paused for a short rest on the far side of the bridge, Kukalukl sniffed intently at the bridge and the dirt.
“Do you scent the Marauders?” Adam said. “Can you pick up their trail?”
Kukalukl shook his head. “I smell them, yes, but only faintly. Certainly not enough to follow. Something—probably yesterday’s downpour—wiped away most of their scent.”
Adam frowned. “Which means they passed this way more than twenty‑four hours ago.” He turned to Freud. “Have you any idea how long it will take us to reach our destination?”
“I cannot be absolutely certain, of course,” Freud said, “but if the Marauders’ base is, as I suspect, near the signs of habitation I saw on my way east and if we continue traveling at the rate we have been, we will arrive there in approximately three days.”
Adam scowled, grabbed his backpack, and started to pull it on. “That is too long. We must hurry to close the gap between us.”
The ascent of the western slope took nearly three hours. Halfway up, Dagmar flopped to the dirt and moaned that if she tried to take another step her legs would drop off, so Kukalukl offered to let her ride on his back, which she did. Maggie watched, envious, as the jaguar bore the girl away. Then she armed the sweat from her eyes and plodded after them. She wondered what Dagmar had done to inspire such loyalty and tolerance in the jaded cat.
It was past noon when they reached the top, so they stopped there for a quick lunch. When they resumed their journey, they found that the forest on this side of the river valley was much younger than that on the eastern side. The trees were shorter and slimmer, with smooth gray trunks and delicate leaves almost too green to be natural. As the afternoon wore on and the sun slowly moved ahead of them, the forest thinned out, giving way more and more often to clearings carpeted with thick green grass. Large, colorful flowers dotted the grass like Easter eggs.
“This is so beautiful,” said Maggie with a smile when they paused to rest in one such clearing.
“It sure is,” Bob said as he filled the water bottles in a clear stream that bubbled along the northern edge of the clearing. “I guess not everything after the Cataclysm is so bad.”
Kukalukl, who lay sprawled on his side with his eyes half closed, suddenly shot upright, ears erect and turned slightly back. “What is that infernal noise?”
“What noise?” asked Adam, standing up.
“I hear it as well,” said Freud. “It is music of some kind. My Encyclopedia Galactica suggests that it might be an old‑fashioned march performed by a full marching band.”
“What?” said Bob. “A marching band here?”
Then the wind shifted and all of them could hear it: The faint strains of brass and woodwinds punctuated by the rhythmic booming of a drum.
“That’s not a recording, either,” Bob said. “It’s live. Somebody’s playing.”
“Let us learn who,” said Adam.
They tethered the mules to a tree on the edge of the clearing, then crept through the woods toward the music. Soon they stood facing a line of trees and bushes too dense to see through. The music, now quite loud and distinct, was coming from the other side.
Adam motioned for the others to stay back, then slunk forward and peeked through the branches. He stood there without moving long enough for the others to start wondering if he was all right. When he finally turned around, his narrow black lips were parted in astonishment, and his moist yellow eyes were large and bewildered. In less uncertain circumstances his nonplussed expression would have been comical.
“What is it?” mouthed Maggie.
He shook his head a little and shrugged, spreading his thick hands. He kept blinking as if he didn’t trust his vision. Then he turned and looked through the branches again.
The others came forward and did likewise, and within seconds all of them except Freud and Kukalukl were wearing identical expressions of surprise.
On the other side of the trees was a grassy clearing in the center of which several dozen stuffed animals paraded round and round, many of them playing tiny instruments. A yellow‑and‑orange striped cat tooted on a trumpet. A green dog puffed away at an oboe. A plaid elephant grasped in its trunk a drumstick which it rhythmically swung over its head to beat a large drum strapped to its back. A lavender teddy bear led the procession, a baton in one paw. The animals without instruments simply bobbed back and forth to the beat as they marched along on their stumpy legs.
Soon the song ended and the animals jumped up and down, cheering and laughing in high-pitched voices, their instruments and their glassy eyes glinting in the sun.
“Ohmigawd!” shrieked Dagmar, bursting from the trees before anyone could stop her. “Look at them! They’re so cute!”
The animals whirled around. When they saw Dagmar beaming at them, and the others peeping out of the bushes behind her, they jumped and cheered with redoubled vigor.
“Guests!” they cried. “We have guests! Welcome one! Welcome all! Huzzah!”
Adam and the others stepped through the trees and joined Dagmar, who was bouncing up and down with joy, her normally haughty demeanor washed away by a flood of child-like glee. When she looked back at the others, there were tears in her eyes, and Maggie felt a pang of pity for the girl. Wh
en, she wondered, was the last time Dagmar had been able to shed the regal airs and the constant cares of survival and act like the child she was?
The lavender teddy bear stepped forward, his blunt arms outstretched.
“Welcome, friends,” said the bear. “Welcome to Happyvale, where every day is a celebration! I am Rumbledum, the mayor and official greeter!”
Maggie glanced at Adam, expecting him to speak, but he was still too rattled by the freakish spectacle of animated toys to formulate anything resembling a coherent thought.
“My name is Magdalena Frankenstein,” she said. “And—”
“I’m Dagmar!” the girl said in a voice that was almost a squeal. “This is so awesome!”
“Why, thank you ever so much,” said Rumbledum. “We strive to fill everything we do with joy and happiness. Now come; you look weary and long-traveled. You must rest and refresh yourselves. Come.”
He waddled backward, beckoning them to follow. They did. The other stuffed animals crowded around them, singing nonsense songs full of “lalala”s and “tiddle-di-doo”s. The striped cat, who introduced herself as FooFoo, clambered onto Dagmar’s left shoulder and sat there swaying and purring in time to the singing.
Rumbledum led them to a grove of young sycamores next to the stream. In the heart of the grove was a small, cozy clearing with grass so soft and springy you could sleep on it.
“Sit,” said Rumbledum. “Relax. Enjoy. It has been ages since we’ve had guests and we mean to celebrate your visit to the utmost.”
“Please,” said Adam. “This is all very lovely, but we—”
“No no no,” said Rumbledum waving a paw. “No ‘but’s. I insist that you stay, if only for a meal.”
“A meal?”
“Oh, yes. We are wonderful cooks. Wait here, and you shall see.” He turned to the other animals. “Come! We must prepare a feast!” Cheering, they all hurried away.
When they were gone, Bob turned to the others and said, “You know, just when I think I’ve seen the weirdest thing this crazy world has to offer, I run into something like this.” He shook his head. “This is just…” He couldn’t think of a word to satisfactorily end the sentence. He wasn’t sure there was one.
“This is so totally awesome!” said Dagmar. “When we’re done with our quest, I’m gonna come and live here, like, forever!”
“What about your kingdom?” said Maggie.
“Oh. Yeah. Uh…” She frowned and chewed her lower lip for a moment, then her bubbly demeanor resurfaced. “Maybe the animals can come live with me! They can march around and play their instruments in the big garden behind the palace every day! It’ll be the best!”
“I don’t like them,” said Kukalukl.
“Why?” said Bob. “Because they’re not the kind of animals you can eat?”
“Ho-ho-ho. Quite amusing, schist-head. No, there’s something about their smell I don’t care for.”
“What, exactly?”
“I don’t know. I can’t quite put my claw on it. Something tells me I should know, but…” He made a small sound halfway between a sigh and a huff. “Ah, well, I must think on it. Perhaps the answer will come to me.”
“I must confess,” said Adam, “I myself do not entirely trust them either. This all seems a touch too pleasant. Surely in a world as brutal as this, such happy little creatures would have been exterminated by monsters or Marauders long ago.”
“Maybe they’re just too nice to kill,” protested Dagmar. “Or maybe they’re really good at hiding.”
“Perhaps. But I think we should remain on our guard, and not blindly trust their innocent appearance.”
“I suppose that right now would be the most appropriate time to comment that their energy signatures are consistent with their appearance as stuffed animals,” said Freud.
“Um, what do you mean, exactly?” said Bob.
“He means they don’t emit heat like most living beings,” said Kukalukl. “I noticed that too.”
“More than that,” said Freud. “There appear to be absolutely no biochemical processes occurring within them at all.”
“Meaning what?” said Bob. “They’re just stuffed animals?”
“So it would appear.”
“But they move and talk.”
“Magic,” said Kukalukl. “It’s the only explanation.”
“Oh, great,” Bob said. “Just what we needed.”
“Magic doesn’t mean they’re evil or anything,” Dagmar said. “There’s good magic, too, like—like fairy magic or—”
Kukalukl raised his head and let out a long ululating yowl that it took everyone a moment to recognize as laughter.
Dagmar glared at him with wide, outraged eyes. Her chin dimpled slightly as she forced back tears.
As soon as he saw this, Kukalukl stopped laughing and bowed his head at the girl. “I apologize for my rude, thoughtless laughter.”
Once again, Maggie was dumbfounded at the jaguar’s deferential treatment of the girl. It couldn’t be because Dagmar was a queen; Kukalukl wasn’t the sort to respect kings and queens. It had to be something else.
“I accept your apology,” Dagmar said in a cool, starchy tone, her nose upraised, her queenly manner once more in full force. “But tell me what you found so funny.”
“It was your comment about fairy magic being good.”
She frowned, this time more in puzzlement than anger. “Why is that funny?”
“I can only assume that you have never actually met a fairy.”
“Well…no. I’ve just heard stories about them.”
“Ah. That explains it. You see, I have met fairies—quite a few of them over the years—and despite what your books say, they’re the most damnably annoying creatures in all existence.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yes. Utter pests. The most capricious and self‑absorbed creatures you’ll ever meet. A lot like debutantes, really. At any rate, you are correct: Just because it’s magic doesn’t mean it’s bad. Like science or religion, magic is simply a tool that can be used for either good or ill. Still, I recommend keeping our guard up until we know more.”
“Well, they seem nice enough…”
Just then the odor of cooking food filtered into the clearing, and in response their stomachs churned and gurgled, making them realize how hungry they were. They hadn’t eaten anything in hours.
After a seemingly eternal wait Rumbledum and a dozen other stuffed animals appeared, bearing silver platters stacked with cuts of meat, flagons of wine, bowls filled with soups and salads and nuts and berries. On one platter that was so heavy four animals had to carry it stood a seven-layer cake covered with white frosting and adorned with flowers made of red and blue icing.
Dagmar gasped. Adam and Maggie exchanged a surprised glance. Bob licked his lips and rubbed his groaning belly. Kukalukl sniffed the cooked meat and harrumphed in disdain. Freud merely commented, “Oh, how lovely.”
“Eat!” said Rumbledum. “Drink! Celebrate!”
“Where did you acquire all this wonderful food?” asked Maggie. She tasted one of the salads. It was a mix of spinach and nasturtium leaves topped with tomato slices, pine nuts, and an oil-based dressing that had a mushroomy flavor. “And how did you learn how to prepare it?”
Rumbledum pointed a paw at the green dog, who lowered his head sheepishly. “Slobberjaw there is our master chef. As for the origin of the food, some of it we gathered and caught here in the forest, and some of it we scavenged from some ruined human buildings off that way.” He pointed southwest.
“Well you guys did a marvelous job,” Bob said in between bites of venison. “My compliments to Slobberjaw, especially.”
“Dahr, it was nothin’,” said Slobberjaw with an embarrassed shrug. If he had had pockets he would have stuffed his paws into them.
“I notice that you are not eating,” Rumbledum said to Adam, his voice full of concern. “Is the food not to your liking?”
“Oh, it looks most dele
ctable. It is simply that I am not currently hungry. My metabolism operates differently than that of a normal human. I will, however, feast later, rest assured.”
“I see.” He turned to Kukalukl. “And you? Why do you not eat?”
“It’s been cooked. I prefer my meat raw and bloody.”
Unexpectedly, Rumbledum giggled. “I should have known. We could capture a deer or rabbit or some other animal, if you like. We hate to see our guests unhappy.”
“I would be unhappy if you did catch something for me. I prefer to hunt my own meals, thank you very much.”
Rumbledum glanced at Freud. “I assume the hard shiny one doesn’t eat at all?”
“That is correct,” Freud said. “All my energy requirements are met by a miniature atomic reactor in my thoracic cavity.”
“I see.” Rumbledum bowed to the group. “Enjoy the feast. At dusk we will build a bonfire, and there will be singing and dancing. We would be overjoyed if you joined us.”
“We will surely consider it,” said Adam.
“Splendid! I hope to see you later, then.”
With that, he and Slobberjaw and the other stuffed animals scurried out of the clearing.
“Why are you not eating?” Maggie whispered to Adam. “And why did you lie about your metabolism?”
“I refuse to eat until I am certain the food is safe.”
Maggie’s eyes widened, and her fork, laden with a dripping chunk of rabbit, froze halfway to her lips. Bob spat the berries he had been eating onto his plate. Dagmar gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth.
“You mean it’s, like, poisoned or something?” she said, her frightened eyes looking as if they would pop right out of her head.
Adam groaned inwardly. He hadn’t meant to scare everyone like this.
“I am not saying it is poisoned. But in this perilous world it is wise to trust only food you make yourself. Or food that you can analyze.” He spoke this latter sentence with a pointed look at Freud.
“Oh,” said the robot. “Do you wish me to analyze it, then? I am able to identify over seventeen thousand different poisonous compounds.”
“Please do.”
Freud fixed his gaze upon the meats. His eyes briefly glowed a brighter orange. Then he turned his attention to the soup, then the salads, and so on with each dish until he ended with the cake. The others waited anxiously throughout all this, their own eyes returning to the food again and again as if expecting to spot a telltale hemlock leaf. Only Kukalukl, who hadn’t eaten anything, remained blasé. He merely sniffed the food and said, “Well, I don’t smell anything. Of course, it’s hard to be sure, what with the disgusting aroma of de-rawed meat contaminating everything.”
Finally Freud said, “I detect nothing that could be considered harmful except to those with violent allergies to milk, eggs, honey, wheat—”
“But there’s no poison?” said Bob.
“Probably not.”
“Probably?”
“There are some molecular structures I cannot identify in the honey and a few other items, but they are trace amounts and are most likely pollen from plants that are not in my database.”
“Oh.” Bob looked at his food, shrugged, and forked the spat-out, half-chewed berries back into his mouth. “Well, everything sure tastes okay.”
Everyone nodded in agreement, and they ate.
And they ate.
And they ate.
And an hour later they lay on the grass, groaning.
“Oh, man,” said Bob. “I haven’t had a meal this large or this rich in…geez, it’s been years.”
“As with us,” said Maggie. “Even the meals I prepared at the manor were never so…so variegated.”
“Uhhh,” moaned Dagmar. “What does ‘fairy-gated’ mean?”
“‘Variegated.’ It means characterized by variety.”
“Uh.” She clasped her distended belly, her face suddenly turning a pasty green shade. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”
Adam snorted. “I told you not to have a third piece of cake.”
Dagmar snorted in return. “Oh, right, like I’m gonna do what you say. What are you, my dad?”
“No, but you should respect the hard-won wisdom of those older than you.”
“Yeah, well, you ate too much, too.”
Adam started to respond, then belched, swallowed back the hot blob of semi-digested food that had risen halfway up his throat, and turned a shade of green quite similar to Dagmar’s.
“What can I say?” he said. “I have a weakness for elk.”
Kukalukl had gone out hunting while they ate, and now he returned, his fat pink tongue flapping and slapping noisily as he licked all around his mouth. A drop of blood hung on the end of one whisker.
He took one look at the green, groaning mortals on the grass (Freud stood off to one side in standby mode, resting his processors) and sighed.
“You silly simians have no concept of moderation.”
“Please,” said Dagmar, “don’t talk too much; the vibrations might make me puke.”
“Hh. It might be the best thing for you at this point.” Chuckling, he lay down near Dagmar.
“I trust your own dinner was satisfactory,” Maggie said, not sure if she really wanted to know what the jaguar had killed.
“Oh, it certainly was. That’s the marvelous thing about this post-Cataclysm world: There are all manner of tasty beasts roaming about. Today’s menu consisted of a plump gopher-like beast the size of a wheelbarrow. It was delightful. Very rich meat. And it put up quite an exhilarating chase. Mmm.” He resumed licking his chops. His tongue swiped away the drop of blood. “Mmm. Most delightful indeed.”
Half an hour later a bush on the edge of the clearing rustled and Rumbledum appeared.
“Are we well fed?”
“Oh, yes,” said Maggie. “The meal was delicious.”
“Excellent! The bonfire has been set up and soon we’ll have a jolly time with songs and dances and toasted marshmallows!”
“Marshmallows!” Dagmar exclaimed, her post-repast nausea already too dim a memory to have any instructional value. “I love marshmallows!”
“Come, then! Come and celebrate!”
“Are we celebrating anything in particular?” asked Adam.
“The joy of living! The beauty of the day! The wonderfulness of everything! Every day is worthy of celebration! Come, now! Come!”
Adam frowned. “I am not sure we should. We need to resume our hunt for the Marauders. We have been here too long already.”
“It is too late to move on now,” Maggie said, nodding at the sun, a bleary red glow behind the tree-trunks to the west. “We would be stopping for the night within an hour anyway. We may as well camp here.”
“I suppose so…” He hated that they had wasted so much time in Happyvale. But Maggie was right: There was little sense in packing up and moving on only to have to stop again before they had gotten over the next hill.
They followed Rumbledum out of the clearing, through the trees, and into another, larger clearing where all the stuffed animals stood around a pyramid of logs and branches, their instruments arranged on the grass near by. Torches flickered in holders affixed low on the trees that ringed the clearing. Garlands of flowers had been strung among the branches overhead.
When the stuffed animals saw the group arrive, they cheered and capered about. The elephant raised his trunk and blatted. Slobberjaw raced in circles and barked happily. A shaggy brown monkey chattered and did backflips.
Rumbledum spread his arms wide. “Now we dance!”
Those animals with instruments picked them up and began playing a tune that sounded like Ragtime music to Bob, while the rest of the animals skipped and jumped and do-si-doed.
The monkey approached Dagmar, grabbed her hands, and said, “Eek-eek! I’m Chimparee! Let’s dance!” He pulled her toward the merry-making throng. Giggling, she let him.
Rumbledum and a penguin with big orange eyes made of felt approac
hed the others. Rumbledum extended a paw for Maggie to take, while the penguin said, “Hi, I’m Freezy!” and reached out for Adam’s hands with his stiff, pointed black wings. Adam yanked his hands away.
“Don’t you like me?” Freezy asked Adam in a small, sad voice.
“I am sure you are a wonderful little bird,” said Adam. “But I do not dance.”
“Oh, go on,” Maggie said with a laugh as Rumbledum led her into the crowd. “It might do you good.”
“I think not.”
Freezy lowered his head, slumped his shoulders, and started to turn away, but then Bob stepped out in front of him and said, “I’ll dance with you.”
The penguin hopped up and down on his bright orange feet and flapped his wings as fast as a hummingbird’s. “Yay!”
He and Bob joined the throng.
“I notice they didn’t ask me to dance,” said Kukalukl. “Not that I’m complaining, mind you. Dancing is a reprehensible activity, fit only for children and fools. It wastes perfectly good energy and makes you look like a spastic idiot.”
“They did not ask me to dance, either,” said Freud.
“No doubt because you already look like a spastic idiot.”
“Your insistence on insulting those who have done you no harm betokens a deep-seated dissatisfaction with yourself.”
“On the contrary, widget-brain, I am perfectly satisfied with myself. Indeed, in my many millennia of existence I have found nothing else that meets my standards of excellence.”
“Millennia?” asked Adam without taking his eyes from Dagmar, Maggie, and Granite, all of whom seemed to be having a wonderful time dancing with the stuffed animals. “You’re that old?”
“Certainly. We gods are quite long-lived.”
“Again with this ridiculous assertion of godhood,” said Freud. “Gods, my good jaguar, do not exist. They are merely the creations of unenlightened minds.”
“You are an idiot.”
“The issue of your godhood aside, one would expect that during such a long life you would have learned good manners.”
“Just the opposite. The longer I live the more intolerant I become. It’s quite tiresome watching generation after generation commit the same tedious mistakes and espouse the same unthinking opinions. I suppose I should be more sympathetic toward them, seeing as how their lives are so short and they lack any real experience—”
“You should indeed!” said Freud.
“But why bother? Hostility and contempt are more amusing. It provides a sort of entertainment value lacking in most of the rest of the universe.”
“I must say, that is quite a peculiar attitude. I am inclined to believe that you are joking, though I cannot be sure, as I have little experience in dealing with theriomorphic entities like yourself.”
“Thank goodness for that.” Kukalukl realized that Adam still had not taken his eyes from the other three members of their party, who continued to make idiots of themselves in the heart of the clearing. “I think you are too overprotective.”
Adam tore his eyes from the dancing throng to look at Kukalukl. “I do not. Fair though they seem, these animated toys have yet to convince me of their trustworthiness.”
“Oh, I quite agree. But if they do mean us ill, I don’t think they’ll do anything for a while yet. Had they planned to simply attack us, they would have done it when we entered this clearing. It was the perfect set-up for an ambush.”
“True. But we know nothing of their capabilities. They might be corrupting those they dance with in some subtle manner. I cannot help but worry.”
“Ah, but you forget that the converse is true, as well: They know nothing of our capabilities. If they do try anything, they’ll be in for quite a shock, I assure you.”
Adam gave a small, grim smile.
“Yes,” he said. “They will.”
Twenty minutes later the dance broke up and Dagmar, Maggie, and Bob rejoined the others. They were laughing as best they could through their panting, and their skin shone with sweat.
“Wow,” said Bob. “Those little fellas sure like to dance. I guess they’re the real party animals.” He chuckled as if he had made a joke, but if he had, no one else understood it.
Adam couldn’t help noticing how close together Bob and Maggie were standing. This, their sweatiness, their panting, their exhausted smiles—all of it melded together to lend them a sated, post-coital air, and in response Adam’s heart and mind flashed black with a sickening mix of anger, despair, and jealousy.
He managed to quash these feelings almost immediately. Only a couple of days ago they would have precipitated either a violent outburst or a week-long bout of brooding. But since then things had changed.
He understood now that Maggie and Bob would not simply run off together; Maggie was still his family and would not abandon him, and Bob…well, Adam suspected that, amazingly enough, he and Bob were on the road to becoming friends. What’s more, he suspected that Bob valued Adam’s companionship as much as, if not more than, Adam was coming to value Bob’s. Adam wasn’t the only one who had changed over the last few days; improbable as it seemed, Bob had grown happier, more content. And after last night, Adam believed he understood why. When Bob had mentioned the costumed crime‑fighters he had worked with, his eyes had grown distant and full of longing. And when he related his inability to find any such people in the aftermath of the Cataclysm, his voice had been tight with remembered frustration. Bob was a team player, most comfortable in the company of other super-powered individuals, and though Adam didn’t wear a gaudy costume or use a silly code-name, he was, essentially, a super-powered individual. As such, he filled a fifteen-year-old void in Bob’s life.
As Adam watched Maggie and Granite smile at each other, he felt a vague sense of disorientation, as if the world had subtly changed all around him when he hadn’t been looking. He felt a pressure in his chest and throat that might have been either incipient laughter or incipient tears.
“What are they doing?” Maggie said, looking off at something.
Adam followed her gaze. The animals had gathered around the pyramid of logs and branches, except Rumbledum, who stood near Adam and the others with one of the torches in his paw.
“Now we light the bonfire!” said the teddy bear, waving his paw at the sky. The sun sat upon the western horizon, its rays thin and weak, and the clearing was growing dim. “Come! Join us! Soon the singing will begin!”
He trotted up to the bonfire and inserted the torch between two of the logs at the base. Within moments milky pennants of fire snapped amid the branches, and streamers of white smoke unfurled into the air.
Adam and the others joined the animals around the fire and all but Freud sat down. Those animals who had instruments played a bouncy tune, and the rest sang their usual nonsense rhymes.
Though only Dagmar joined them in the singing, the rhythm of the music was infectious enough to set most of the rest of the group bobbing their heads and tapping their feet. Freud, of course, simply continued standing there, watching, while Kukalukl took this opportunity to groom his haunches.
The singing went on for over an hour, and by the time it ended, most of the group was half asleep. Maggie’s head kept sinking forward only to snap upright again. Dagmar, despite her joy at the music, couldn’t keep from yawning every twenty seconds. Even Adam felt his eyelids growing heavy. The mules, however, which Adam had thought to retrieve during the song-fest and now stood tied to a nearby tree, were wide awake and somewhat agitated; perhaps they sensed the magic that Kukalukl said must be at work here.
The stuffed animals were tired, too, and before long they flopped to the grass with a collective sigh and lay there humming sleepily. Rumbledum clambered over many of his prostrate fellows to join their honored guests.
“Now it is sleepy-time,” he said in a small, tired voice as he lay down between Dagmar and Adam.
“Do you just sleep here on the grass?” said Maggie. “Don’t you have shelter?”
“When it rains we take shelter in the ruined human buildings. But it rarely rains here. Most every day is clear and beautiful.”
He yawned and stretched his stumpy limbs.
“I shall sleep here with my new friends,” he said, snuggling close to Dagmar.
Beaming, she wrapped her arms around him and held him to her chest as she settled down to sleep.
Adam watched with a soft smile, touched by the scene despite his suspicions. There was something hopeful and reassuring about seeing a happy child curl up at bedtime with a stuffed animal as children did before the world went bad (before all the worlds went bad, if Bob was right about alternate realities). It showed that some of the better aspects of human nature did not—perhaps could not—change.
None of which proved the animals’ innocence, of course. Not at all. This might still the beginning of a devious trap.
Yet while he desired to remain awake and vigilant just in case, he was exhausted, and before he knew what was happening, his eyes drifted closed…