The children burst from the tunnel in a sobbing, sniveling pile. Levi pushed his way through them, the petrified little girl still in his arms. Behind, he could hear the clatter of stones as the tunnel collapsed.
“Stay close,” he told Twila. “Follow me.”
Something was happening in Slynderfell’s factory. When they passed through the arches, the riot was in full view.
“Wild things!” gasped Twila.
And they were. They’d shed their trappings—the ties and shirts and clipboards—and gone back to their true nature.
Pipes burst. Vats exploded. A root beer soda grenade leveled the Marketing Department, taking a host of bad flavor puns with it.
Levi turned a corner and stopped. His brow furrowed as he struggled to remember the route to the surface.
shrieked a disturbingly familiar voice. Slynderfell loomed over him, a flaming ice cream cone torch in his hand.
Something small and spiny collided with Slynderfell, and his eyes were thrown from his head.
screamed Slynderfell as he blindly chased after his retreating sight creatures.
yipped Willow.
Up, up through the corkscrew labyrinth.
The cave walls narrowed . . .
became the rust of the drainage pipe . . .
and then they spilled into the crisp air of the night outside.
Levi ushered the children down the slope to a scrubby field. He lowered the crying little girl into a patch of old dandelions and did a quick head count. He looked for Willow, but she had once again disappeared.
“Levi?” said Twila in a small voice. “Is this just a bad dream?”
“Yeah,” he said after a moment.
Twila nodded, knelt, and hugged the little girl Levi had rescued. “Shhh. It’s okay,” Twila whispered. “What’s your name?”
“Cindy,” sniffled the little girl.
“You’ll stay here and keep them safe?” Levi asked Twila softly.
Twila looked up. “Why? Where are you—”
“Whatever you do, don’t follow me,” he said. He started back across the field, ignoring Twila’s protests, but before he reached the slope, he heard a murmur sweep through the children. He looked back.
They materialized slowly, gradually taking shape as they emerged from the mist. They were slouched and shuffling, but at that moment, they somehow managed to be majestic.
“Mushpits!” he cried as he ran to them. “The Boojum! It was below the factory! With lots of monsters and lost wild things working for it! With the . . . children . . .” His voice trailed off as he saw their faces. “You knew all along, didn’t you?”
They were silent. Mr. Mushpit pushed his hands into his pockets and cleared his throat sheepishly.
“If we’d told you, you would have charged headlong into that horrible abyss,” said Mrs. Mushpit at last. “Alas, it seems our caution was moot.”
“Not to mention our treaty with Slynderfell,” muttered Mr. Mushpit.
“Bah!” spat Mrs. Mushpit. “All regulations were whipped out the window the moment those creepers sleep-sanded our wits and demolished our floorboards!”
“We have to go back!” interrupted Levi. “It took Kat!”
Mrs. Mushpit’s face went gray. “The spitfire girl? She’s still down there?”
“Yes! Somewhere! We have to help her! NOW!”
Mrs. Mushpit sighed deeply. “We’ll do everything we can,” she said, “but you need to stay here with the others.”
“NO! I’m going with you! You won’t know where to go! You—”
“Shhh,” said Mrs. Mushpit. She placed a hand on his shoulder, and for the first and only time, he heard her voice become gentle, the voice of a favorite grandmother. “You’re tired,” she whispered. “It’s been a long, long day. There’s a difficult path ahead, but it’s for us to walk. There’s only one thing for you to do now: sleep. Sleep, Levi. You’ve earned it.”
He didn’t want to sleep. How could he sleep? But a sudden warmth filled his body. His limbs were like iron, his eyelids lead. He felt his body staggering back to the field, kneeling, lying in the cool, inviting grass.
“Levi?” whispered Twila. “Will we remember this when we wake?”
He gazed up at the night sky, saw the stars glittering above, saw the autumn constellations, felt the cool breeze prickling his skin.
The sleep overtook him before he could answer.