The path to Majestica was transformed by rain. Mushrooms emerged from the ground with warm, wet lips. Some poked blindly beneath the leaves like the heads of sleeping turtles. Some unfurled like white feathers from the damp bark of the hollow logs. Others gathered in choirs to sing quiet blessings to each other, their golden heads bowed and their eyes closed tight. The sun shone on our heads. We sat cross-legged in the leaves and watched everything sparkle. Ziggy took off Jenny’s necklace and held it up to the sun, and the beads gleamed red and orange and purple like tiny flames. He tucked it behind his ear. Matthew scrambled from Ziggy’s shoulder, found a tiny brown toad the size of a pebble, and pounced around the leaves after it.

The two creatures danced together. They scrambled around the forest floor, the sound of unseen creatures rustling beneath the leaves. I wondered what other invisible beasts might be hiding nearby without our ever realizing it, buried in pine needles or gazing at us from treetops. Matthew emerged with the toad in his jaws, his tail bristling with pride. He lifted his white face, chewed twice, and swallowed.

I stood up and took a deep breath. The ninth dimension smelled like wet leaves and dandelions. Up toward Nana Jean’s orchard, the peaches and apples were getting so heavy that the trees bowed their heads.

I lifted my face and called, “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” so that every invisible beast could hear me.

Slowly, creatures that had been hiding emerged from the shadows like details in a hidden-object picture, the bark of the trees wrinkling, the branches shifting until they were all around us: beasts from the shadows, the color of earth.

The first to emerge was the bark beast. She stepped from the tree with her long, craggy face and wrinkled brown wings. She shook herself free, sniffed the air, and began making a strange, low, grumbling howl of freedom.

Then came the leaf beast, who flicked herself up from a leaf pile with her pointy face and paper-thin claws. She tumbled her papery body toward me, winking as a sign of ancient respect, and then whisked and twirled away, taken by the wind.

The stone wall shivered.

Three bald, round-backed stone beasts the size of potatoes rolled from their crumbled piles like petrified babies and blinked at us with gray impassive eyes.

There were leagues of pinecone and pine needle and acorn and pebble and mushroom beasts, popping from the ground to wander about in hordes, so many that we had to be careful not to step on them, and they had to be careful not to bump into one another with their tiny heads.

Last of all, as though performing a grand finale, the biggest hollow log rolled onto her side and became a magnificent hollow log beast, with her long, broad body and wise snuffling face. She lumbered over to us, grunting joyously.

“Welcome, beast,” I said to her softly. And then I raised my face. “Welcome, all of you.”

The bark beast barked.

The acorn beast chirped.

The ninth dimension was filled with the rumble and buzz of creatures thanking me for bringing them to life.

The hollow log beast took a very deep breath and blew a long, low howl.

Matthew scrambled onto Ziggy’s head. He was shivering.

“It’s okay, Matthew,” said Ziggy.

Matthew ducked under Ziggy’s hair.

“Come, beasts,” I called. “Come, beautiful beasts. Come dance with us!”

We led them all around the ninth dimension, the stone and the pebble beasts, the pinecone and the pine needle beasts, the acorn and the mushroom beasts, the bark, the leaf, and the hollow log beast — all twirling and tripping and galumphing after us in an enormous conga line.

We drummed on the ground.

We stomped.

We howled and buzzed and grunted and snorted and grumbled. We twirled in a massive stomping crowd, stone beasts with acorn beasts, bark beast with leaf beast, and me and Ziggy in the middle, stomping our bare feet and howling louder than any of them.

But then there was a horrible sound that didn’t fit at all.

Cruel laughter.

Buzz Crowley was standing on the top of the hill and sneering at us in disgust.

“Well, would you look at this. It’s the crazy girl and the fairy boy.”

The hollow log beast sighed and turned back into a hollow log.

The bark beast stepped back into the tree.

The stone beasts faded back into the old stone wall.

We stopped dancing. I reached out and took Ziggy’s hand.

“Looks like the two neighborhood freaks have finally found each other.”

John-John laughed as though what Buzz just said was the funniest thing he ever heard in his life. The horrible sound spread through the ninth dimension like a plague.

“Get out,” said Ziggy. “You’re not wanted here.”

“Oh, we’re not?” said Buzz. “What are you going to do about it? This is public land. Anyone can play here. It’s not like we’re trespassing or something.”

“You are trespassing,” I said. “And for your information, this is my land. It has always been my land, and I want you out of here right now or you’ll be sorry!”

Buzz narrowed his eyes. “Are you challenging me?” he asked.

He picked up a big stick.

John-John picked up a big stick too.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m challenging you.”

“Okay,” said Buzz. “You asked for it.”

The brothers looked at each other and nodded. Then Buzz and John-John came running down the hill with their sticks.

Ziggy picked up a stray stone beast and ran toward them, screaming.

He threw the stone beast at Buzz’s head.

He missed.

Buzz grabbed Ziggy by the shoulders and shoved him onto the ground. He put the heel of his foot on Ziggy’s back.

“Get off!” screamed Ziggy. “Get off of me!”

John-John held up his stick. “I’m gonna whack him,” he said.

“No!”

Ziggy covered his face.

Buzz used his foot to push Ziggy’s face hard into the leaves. He moved his foot back and forth so Ziggy’s face smeared against the ground. Ziggy struggled to get up, but Buzz kept kicking him back down.

“Stop it,” I said.

“Why should I?” said Buzz.

“Yeah,” said John-John. “Why should he?”

I thought about what to do for a moment. They were too big for me to fight. They were too mean for me to plead with. But they were stupid. And they were cruel. Maybe I could use that to trick them somehow.

“Because if you don’t,” I said, making my voice hateful like theirs, “I’m going to give you AIDS.”

“That’s dumb,” said Buzz.

I took a step closer.

“Didn’t you hear what Lucy Delmato said? My daddy died of AIDS and everyone in my house has it. If I give it to you, you’ll die of it too. Do you want that?”

My own words nauseated me.

Buzz laughed and poked the stick into Ziggy’s hair. He found Jenny’s beads with the tip of the stick and flung them deep into the woods. Then he ran the stick up and down Ziggy’s back and poked him with it in the butt.

“You like that?” he said. “You like that, you little fairy?”

“No,” said Ziggy, muffled into the leaves. “I don’t like that at all.”

John-John put his stick on Ziggy’s butt too.

I spit on the ground. “That spit has AIDS in it,” I told them.

“My teacher says you can’t get AIDS from spit,” said John-John.

“You can if there’s enough of it. Also, I have a canker sore in my mouth and it’s bleeding. I’m going to kiss you with my canker sore, and you’re going to die from AIDS.” I puckered up and took a step forward. “Come over here.”

Buzz and John-John both took a step backward.

Ziggy pulled himself out of the leaves. His face was smeared with dirt and tears. He stood there blinking and breathing hard. His hands were clenched into fists.

“What are you looking at?” Buzz said to Ziggy. “You want to kiss me too?”

“What’s that?” said Ziggy.

“He does,” said John-John. “He loves you. He wants to kiss you.”

I charged at John-John. I juiced up and spit a big, wet loogie right in his eye.

“There’s blood in there,” I said in a low voice. “Now you’re gonna die.”

John-John screamed and dropped his stick. He started wiping his eye furiously.

“Don’t be such a wuss,” Buzz told him, but he looked uncertain, and when John-John leaned into him and whispered, “I don’t want to die,” Buzz dropped his stick and put his arm around his brother’s shoulder.

“You’re not gonna die,” he whispered back. “We’ll get you to a doctor.”

“It’s too late,” I said. “Once you’ve been infected with AIDS, you have it forever. There’s no cure. Kiss me, Buzz,” I said, coming closer. I picked up the stick and made myself smile a huge, crazy, cross-eyed smile. “Kiss me right on the canker sore.” I licked my lips and drooled and spit and charged at him, still grinning my crazy-girl grin and puckering and spitting the whole way. “You’re gonna die of AIDS, just like John-John and my daddy. You’re gonna die, Buzz Crowley. They’re gonna bury you, and the maggots will eat out your eyes. Kiss me.”

The two boys took one more look at my wet, slurpy face, and one more look at each other, and then, without even talking about it, they hightailed it out of there and ran like their pants were on fire, falling down and picking themselves up, and climbing over each other and screaming all the way up the hill and back around the house to Trowbridge Road.

I knelt down in the leaves with the stick in my hand and I sobbed, my own hateful, lying, horrible words echoing all around me.

Ziggy sat down beside me. His face was smeared with dirt.

“You were brave,” he said.

“I wasn’t,” I muttered.

“You stood up for me,” said Ziggy. “No one has ever done that before.”

“My daddy would have been ashamed of me. He would have hated to hear me talking about AIDS that way. Using fear to make them run away.”

“I think he would have been proud,” said Ziggy. “At school one time I tried to fight some bullies. I scratched a boy in the face so hard, he had to go to the hospital for stitches. We were both suspended. And then when I got back, the fighting got worse. You figured out a way to make them stop that didn’t hurt anyone.”

“You’re wrong,” I whispered. “It did hurt.”

Matthew appeared out of nowhere and danced at our feet, chirring and trying to make us smile, which we might have done if we had not been sobbing. I scratched the top of Matthew’s head.

The beasts stayed in the shadows and watched me cry. They didn’t know what tears were. This was the first time they had seen meanness, and to them, death was just the end of a day, no more sad than a sunset. They didn’t come out, but I could feel their eyes on me while I cried, my body shuddering. Ziggy put his arm around my shoulders, his head leaning against my head. The beasts watched while Ziggy walked into the woods to find Jenny’s beads. They watched while I fumbled around for Backpack, where I would find the Necessaries I needed to erase the disgustingness and lies.

I poured a capful of mouthwash into my mouth. I gargled hard, sloshing it over my tongue and over my teeth. I spit a stream of mouthwash into the leaves and then spit again and again and again until there was nothing left.