From high in the air, Tuesday caught sight of the hillside and its single tree. Baxterr barked with delight and wriggled in Tuesday’s arms.
“No!” called Tuesday in alarm, as Baxterr launched himself into thin air.
The distance to the ground was much too great for an ordinary dog to leap, but in this world, Baxterr was anything but ordinary. He opened up a pair of golden-brown wings that were all covered on their outer side with short, shaggy fur. Tuesday watched in awe as Baxterr transformed into a gigantic dog, flapping his way up into the sky above her, and then turning to soar, swoop, and loop-the-loop his way to the hillside, where he landed with perfect grace.
Tuesday felt as if she were flying too, zooming along at the behest of the silvery thread that was wrapped around her hand and her wrist, pulling her toward the tree. Tuesday continued to hurtle down, and just when she was certain that she would slam into its branches, the thread went slack and unwound itself from her arm. Tuesday fell out of the air like a stone and landed on the ground in an ungainly collection of elbows and knees. Baxterr bounded over to her, his wings partly folded, and stood beside her, grinning widely.
“Well, I’d probably land beautifully too, if I had wings,” she said, scrambling to her feet. It was wonderful to watch Baxterr frolic in his proper size across the hillside, sniffing with his wet black nose at every last blade of grass he passed. Tuesday was expecting to see evidence of chaos, but everything was much the same as it had been when she was last here. There was the beautiful old tree, and the hillside rolling down to a moat of white mist, and a lovely, serene sense that she was standing on top of the world, which—in a way—she was. Everything was quiet and calm, and there was nothing at all to suggest that this was a place where anyone might be in danger.
“What’s been happening, tree?” Tuesday inquired, but the tree only whispered to itself in a green sort of language and dispatched out of a hollow in its trunk Tuesday’s thread, neatly rolled into a ball about the size of a tangerine. It rolled to a stop at her feet.
“Oh, thanks,” Tuesday said, and put it away carefully in a pocket of her jacket. And then she squealed as something hairy fell from the branch right above her head and brushed creepily across her face. As she jumped away, swatting at her face in alarm, Tuesday heard a giggle that she recognized. She looked up, and there, hanging by her knees from a branch, was Vivienne Small, with a huge grin on her cheeky, upside-down face. Vivienne swung herself down and landed delicately on her feet in front of Tuesday. She was a good bit shorter than Tuesday, though they were about the same age.
For a moment, the two girls stood and beamed at each other. Tuesday wanted to hug Vivienne, but she wasn’t exactly sure that Vivienne was the hugging type. And Vivienne wanted to pull a hank of Tuesday’s hair, out of pure happiness to see her again, but she wasn’t sure that Tuesday would understand.
“I’m glad you came,” said Vivienne. “I really need your help.”
“Well, here I am,” said Tuesday. Then Baxterr bounded up the hill with his tail waving like a furry banner, clearly delighted to see his old friend Vivienne.
“Doggo!” Vivienne said.
At his full size, Baxterr towered over Vivienne, so in order to greet her properly, he flung himself down onto his belly beside the tree and rested his muzzle on the ground. Vivienne reached up and scratched one of his huge ears.
“I really hate to tell you this, doggo, but you can’t be this big. And you can’t go flying about, either.” Vivienne turned to Tuesday. “It’s not safe for him. There are horrible, dangerous things flying around out there. They’ve already killed a Winged Dog.”
“What?” said Tuesday.
“Hurrrrrr,” said Baxterr, shrinking himself back to his compact size. He kept his wings, though, and folded them in close so that they were quite invisible.
Vivienne nodded. “So, are you ready?”
“For what?” Tuesday said.
“We have an urgent message to deliver. C’mon, let’s go.”
“What message? From who? Where? What?”
Without wasting words, Vivienne told Tuesday everything she knew about the Winged Dog that had fallen through the roof of the Peppermint Forest. She walked her to the edge of the white cliff and pointed to the Mountains of Margolov and told Tuesday about meeting Harlequin and Tarquin and about the vercaka that had fallen through the sky from another world. She handed Tuesday the dog’s collar and the scroll of paper that had been concealed in the medallion.
“My great love,” Tuesday read aloud. “I cannot hold the worlds apart much longer. What do you think it means?”
“I think it means that worlds are coming together in dangerous ways,” Vivienne said. “I mean, you only have to look at the mountains to know something is terribly wrong. How else did Harlequin and Tarquin get here? And the vercaka?”
“Dangerous for writers too,” Tuesday murmured.
“For writers?” said Vivienne.
“Oh,” said Tuesday, and bit her lip.
It never felt right to Tuesday to tell Vivienne that she was a character in a book. Tuesday hadn’t the first idea how Vivienne would react if Tuesday were to tell her that back in the world that she came from, Vivienne was one of the most famous characters of all time. Not only were there the five books in the Vivienne Small series, written by none other than Serendipity Smith, there were also films and stage plays and radio dramas. There were Vivienne Small soft toys and Vivienne Small cups and jigsaw puzzles, bookmarks, and pencil cases. There were posters and a theme park and … the list went on. But standing in front of Tuesday was the real Vivienne Small: the one who had saved Baxterr’s life and helped Tuesday find her way home. And Tuesday felt it would be all wrong even to mention the cups or jigsaws or pencil cases to this Vivienne Small.
“What do you mean about the writers?” Vivienne asked again.
“Well,” said Tuesday, “there have been people getting injured in my world. Perhaps the same sorts of things are happening in each of our worlds.”
“Are your mountains growing? Are there vercaka?”
“No vercaka, luckily,” said Tuesday. “And so far the mountains are fine. Hang on, I didn’t think the Winged Dogs lived here anymore?”
Tuesday had once asked her mother what had become of the Winged Dogs that, in one of her books, had mysteriously disappeared. Serendipity had said, “Oh, I think they’ve gone someplace rather wonderful. What sort of place do you think Winged Dogs would like to live?”
Tuesday had said, “Maybe a place where there were long sandy beaches and the breeze was always blowing a little bit to keep them cool. I think they’d love a place where there were waterfalls, like in the Winged Mountains, and lovely, shady trees. A place where there were holes in the ground, and instead of hot water coming out of them, every few minutes balls would pop up and fly about so the dogs could chase them.”
Tuesday wondered whether or not she should tell Vivienne any of this. Probably not, she decided.
“Are you listening?” Vivienne said, snapping her fingers impatiently in Tuesday’s face.
“Sorry.”
“The Winged Dog. The one that died on the forest floor. There is somebody, somewhere, who is waiting for that dog to come home, just as you would wait if Baxterr had gone out to deliver a message. This dog was someone’s eternal companion, and that person will want to know what has happened. We must find them, don’t you see?”
“And this person is the G in the note?”
Vivienne nodded vigorously.
“Who do you think G is?” asked Tuesday.
“How should I know?” said Vivienne sharply. “Clearly it’s somebody who is worried that they can’t keep the worlds apart. Don’t you think it all sounds rather important? We have to deliver that message.”
“We?”
“Yes. You’re meant to be here to help!”
Tuesday said, “There’s only one problem. I can’t stay long. I’ve only gone for a walk, supposedly, and I have to get home again before my parents realize I’m missing.”
Had Tuesday been wearing a watch, she might have checked it. Since she wasn’t, she looked up at the sky. The sun was getting low and casting a golden-syrup light over the green leaves and polished branches of the ancient tree.
“If I’m not home by dark, they’ll panic.”
“So you’re going to be no help at all?” asked Vivienne in frustration, and for a moment, Tuesday fancied smoke was coming out of Vivienne’s right ear—the one with the pointed tip.
“I want to help. Really I do…” Tuesday was torn. She thought of her mother and father at home on Brown Street, and how worried they must be. She thought of Dame Elizabeth Coventry. And Flynn McMurtry. And J. D. Jones, and all the others. She knew that she should throw her thread in the air immediately and have it speed her all the way home. But perhaps even that wasn’t safe. What if she asked her thread to take her home, and instead she got caught on the Mountains of Margolov or it landed her back in her own world in some remote quarter of the Southern Ocean or the Simpson Desert? And to complicate matters, here was Vivienne Small, the real Vivienne Small, expecting her to help deal with things that were unfathomably daunting. And extremely interesting at the same time. Tuesday read the note again, then absentmindedly slipped it into her pocket.
“Tell me again about the dog’s memories,” she said.
And Vivienne, trying hard to control her impatience, told her.
“A place of stone and mist,” Tuesday pondered aloud. “Guarded by beasts.”
Something stirred in Tuesday’s memory.
“And there are runes, you say? Somewhere on or near this place?”
“So we think.”
“You do remember them?”
“Of course,” said Vivienne, with a slight sniff.
“Okay then, write them on my arm,” Tuesday said. Vivienne traced onto her inner arm the seven characters that Tarquin had seen in the memory of the Winged Dog.
Ι Π Λ C Ι Π Σ
Tuesday stared at the invisible letters.
“Do it again,” she said.
With a sigh, Vivienne sketched out the marks a second time.
Ι Π Λ C Ι Π Σ
This time, when Vivienne finished, Tuesday grinned. Perhaps it was going to be easier to deliver this message than she had first thought. Perhaps she could even be home in time for dinner, without anyone ever having noticed she’d been there—which, of course, had now lost its t and become here.
“IMAGINE!” Tuesday announced excitedly. “It’s IMAGINE!”
“What?”
“That’s what your runes say. They say IMAGINE.”
“IMAGINE? How does that help?” Vivienne said.
Tuesday reached out and tweaked one of the small braids that dangled down amid Vivienne’s messy black curls, and Vivienne’s cross expression transformed into a smile.
“Come on,” Tuesday said. “I know exactly where we have to go. It’s not far.”