CHAPTER EIGHT

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A Dip in Hudson Bay
The yellow walls and antique-filled interior of the Human Bean felt invitingly cozy to Ariane after her chilling adventure in the alley. She ordered a large skim-milk latte for herself and a large iced cappuccino for Wally (Brrr! she thought), plus two cinnamon buns (heated), and settled down in one of the coffee shop’s overstuffed couches. Wally sat down on another, on the other side of a low table painted with goofy black and white cows against a green background. It could have been any ordinary Sunday morning.
But Ariane’s hand trembled as she raised her latte to her lips. What would have happened if Wally hadn’t shown up? How far was Rex Major willing to go to stop her?
As if you don’t know. Major might be impersonating a modern businessman, but he wasn’t one. They had to remember that. He was a millennia-old sorcerer – Merlin, no less – from a time when human life was even cheaper than it was in the twenty-first century. He’d kill her (or have her killed) the instant he seriously thought she might interfere with his search for the shards of Excalibur.
But as that frightening thought crossed her mind, she frowned. Except...
Why hadn’t he done it already? Why had he even bothered with that bizarre computer-borne warning? The ponytailed man who had attacked her had been hanging around her house for two days. He’d followed her to the convenience store. He’d had several opportunities to run her over, if he’d wanted to kill her. But he hadn’t. And even today, he’d said, “I’m not going to hurt you...”
She found that slightly comforting...but only slightly. Even assuming she could believe him, and he hadn’t just been trying to stop her from struggling, he’d at least been out to kidnap her. While as a potential victim she wholeheartedly endorsed kidnapping over murder, she’d much rather not experience either one.
And then she gripped her mug tightly in horror. That ponytailed creep knew where she lived. That meant he knew about Aunt Phyllis. What if he hurt Aunt Phyllis trying to get to her, or just to teach her a lesson, like they did in movies? The liquid in Ariane’s mug sloshed as her hand quivered. She put down her latte and pushed her cinnamon bun away – she no longer had an appetite.
Wally eyed her plate. “I’ll eat that if you don’t want it.” He’d apparently inhaled his own bun. Whatever nerves he’d felt after the encounter with the ponytailed man – and he’d been white as a freckle-faced ghost for a few minutes – had obviously gone away.
“Be my guest.”
Wally picked up the bun, but didn’t bite into it right away. “What’s wrong? You look like you just tasted something rotten.”
Ariane told him what she’d been thinking. “I’m not worried about myself. Well, OK, I am, a bit. But if anything happened to Aunt Phyllis because of me...”
“Now are you ready to call the police?” Wally took a big bite of the cinnamon bun. “I told you...mmmm...we should have called them right away...mmph.”
“It’s going to be our word against...whoever that guy is,” Ariane said. “Why should the police believe me? I’m what they call ‘troubled,’ you know. Father ran out years ago, mother vanished mysteriously, bounced from foster home to foster home and school to school before my aunt took me in. I’m not what the cops are going to call a reliable witness, and that guy, if he works for Rex Major, has a respectable tax-paying position with Excalibur Computer Systems. They’ll think I’m making it all up to gain attention.”
“But I’ll tell them –”
“They’ll think you’re making it up to gain attention too.”
Wall blinked. “I don’t –”
She sighed, and in the tone of a daycare teacher explaining to a toddler for the umpteenth time why it’s important to wash one’s hands after using the potty, she said, “My attention, Wally. They’ll think you’re in love with me, or something.”
Wally turned the approximate color of a ripe tomato. “That’s nuts!”
Ariane felt a little annoyed. “Of course it is.” Now it was Wally’s turn to frown. “But they won’t know that.”
“But if you really think your Aunt Phyllis is in danger, what else can you do?”
Ariane hadn’t known, until that moment, but Wally’s straightforward question crystallized the answer in her mind. “I have to leave,” she said slowly. “I have to run away.”

~ • ~
It took a lot to distract Wally from a fresh cinnamon bun, but Ariane’s declaration succeeded. He stared at her, bun in hand and mouth wide open, for a long moment, then put the bun down unbitten. “That’s crazy!”
Ariane looked pale, but she lifted her chin stubbornly. “Why? If I’m gone, if I leave Regina, then Rex Major won’t have any reason to hurt Aunt Phyllis.”
“Of course he will!” Wally said. “If he’s going to hurt her to make you abandon the quest, he’s just as likely to do it if you leave town as he is if you stay put.” Ariane opened her mouth as though she were going to argue, and he hurried on, fiercely telling the inner voice reminding him about Wally’s First Law of Sidekickery that sometimes the heroine wasn’t right, and this was one of those times. “You can’t protect her by leaving. In fact, with your power, you’re more likely to be able to protect her by staying put. And anyway, whether she’d be safer or not if you left, you’re safer here with people who can help – like me.”
Ariane met his gaze squarely. “Hasn’t it occurred to you I’m putting you in danger too?”
“Occurred to me?” He snorted. “I just fought some guy in an alley. Of course it’s occurred to me! But I don’t care.”
And he didn’t. Whatever risk he ran by helping Ariane seemed minor compared to the risk of never seeing her again if she ran away. Wally had always thought he was happy as a loner, but he didn’t want to be one anymore. Ariane was his friend, and he didn’t intend to lose her. “And anyway, the same thing applies to me. Rex Major won’t leave me or Aunt Phyllis alone just because you run away. We’ll still be in danger, and you’ll just be in more danger.”
Ariane closed her eyes. “You’re right. I know you’re right. It’s just...I didn’t mean to get Aunt Phyllis involved. But there’s no getting out of it, is there? She...and you...and I...are all at risk until we have Excalibur and Merlin doesn’t.”
“Or until he has it!”
Ariane stared at him.
“I mean it, Ariane! Why not just let him have it? Take his warning. Forget about the whole thing.” Wally surprised himself with his vehemence. What about the quest? a part of him protested, but he ignored it. Screw the quest. “Don’t look at me that way. This is getting serious! At first it was kind of fun, like a movie or a video game or playing make-believe – a little adventure you can quit when Mom calls you for dinner. But someone tried to kidnap you – or worse. And now you’re talking about running away from home. Let Merlin have the stupid sword. We didn’t ask for any of this! It’s none of our business.”
Ariane was silent for a moment. “I can’t,” she finally said. She looked down into her coffee cup. “I just can’t.”
“Why?” Wally said. “So Merlin wants to be king of the world. So what? Maybe we should let him! Maybe that’s what we need on this stupid planet. Maybe he could put an end to the wars in the Middle East and Africa and wherever else we’re killing each other this week. Heck, he’s a sorcerer. Maybe he could put an end to famine and poverty and disease while he’s at it.” He recalled what else had occurred to him. “Jeez, Ariane...did you ever think that maybe we’re on the wrong side? Maybe Merlin is the good guy. Maybe the Lady of the Lake is the villain in this story we’ve been sucked into, and we’re just...pawns.”
Ariane shook her head furiously. “No! Merlin would be a dictator, Wally. We might have peace and food and health – might, because we don’t know if Merlin has that much power – but we’d also have secret police and show trials and political prisoners...and there’d be no Amnesty International to complain to, either, because no one would be allowed to criticize the High King. Wally, you’re the history buff. What did the old-time kings do to anyone who posed the slightest threat to their kingship?”
“They executed them,” Wally said impatiently. “But Merlin is a sorcerer! No one could seriously threaten his kingship except...” He suddenly saw what she was getting at. “Oh,” he finished in a small voice.
Ariane nodded. “Oh. Except someone else with magical powers. And the only person we know of besides Merlin who has magical powers is...me.”
The cinnamon bun he’d already eaten congealed into a solid lump of indigestible dough in Wally’s stomach. “He’ll kill you.”
“Probably.”
“Then...” Wally swallowed. “That man who grabbed you – he didn’t want to just kidnap you, he wanted to...” his voice trailed off.
Ariane frowned. “I don’t know, Wally. He said he wouldn’t hurt me. He might have been lying, of course, but...I think – I hope – that maybe there’s some reason Major doesn’t want to kill me yet. Maybe he needs something from me.” She shook her head. “But even putting aside what Major – Merlin – might do with Excalibur…I can’t give up the quest, Wally. Not now that I have the Lady’s power. Excalibur is...” She broke off. “It’s hard to explain,” she said after a minute. “But I can’t let him have it. I can’t.”
Wally pushed away the remains of Ariane’s cinnamon bun. It no longer looked appetizing. “Major has been up at the Thunderhill Diamond Mine since yesterday. He may already have the first shard.”
“He doesn’t. I’d know it if he did.” Ariane paused, looking a little puzzled. “I don’t know how I’d know. But I know I would. I need to get up there. I need to get up there today.”
“And you think you know how? That’s what ‘it worked’ meant in your email?”
“Yeah. But I warn you, it’s pretty weird...”
Wally snorted. “Weirder than everything else that has happened?”
Ariane smiled a little. “I guess not.”
But as he listened to what she had done, Wally thought she’d guessed wrong. “Let me get this straight,” he said. “You stuck your hands into the water, and you...dissolved? Went down the drain?”
“Yeah,” Ariane said. “I guess so.”
“But to...um, pull yourself together, you had to be somewhere with enough water to cover you.”
“Yeah...”
“Why?” Wally said. He laughed at her startled look. “Well, why? If you’re already violating the law of conservation of mass and energy, why can’t you do whatever you want? This is magic, right? No rules!”
“There are rules,” Ariane said. “They’re just not the ones we’re used to.”
“But what are they?” Wally scratched his head. “I mean, there has to be a cost. TANSTAAFL.”
“TAN-what? Speak English.”
“TANSTAAFL. There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.” Ariane frowned, and he hurried on. “Never mind. So this water-teleporting, or whatever, works for you. The question is, can you take me with you?”
Ariane looked out the window into the cold gray street. “I think I can. I don’t think I should.”
“What?” Wally stared at her. “Why?”
She turned her gaze back to him. “Because this is dangerous, Wally. Even if Major needs me alive for some reason, he doesn’t need you.”
“But you do!” Wally shot back. She’s offering you an out, a cowardly part of him noted. You could agree with her, forget this whole thing, stay safe...
Forget? Forget meeting the Lady of the Lake? Forget that Rex Major is Merlin, that Excalibur is out there, that Ariane is trying to find it? Are you nuts?
“You need me,” he said, his voice low and intense. “To talk to. To carry things. To Google stuff. To whack the bad guys with hockey sticks. To...I don’t know what else. And neither do you. You can’t do this alone, Ariane!”
Her lower lip trembled and for a horrible moment he thought he had made her cry. But when she spoke, her voice was steady. “I know. I just...I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Well, there’s something we agree on, anyway,” he said, and was rewarded with a small smile. “So. No more argument. I’m coming with you...” He paused. “Um...if you really can take me along, that is.”
“It seems like I should be able to.” Ariane’s uncertain tone didn’t exactly fill him with confidence. “But until we try it, I won’t know for sure.”
“Your clothes went with you?”
“What – oh! I see what you mean. If my clothes went with me, then maybe I can take anything I’m touching.” She nodded. “Yes, they went with me.”
An intriguing vista of interesting possibilities vanished from Wally’s imagination. “Oh, well…” Ariane raised an eyebrow at him, and he hurried on. “Logically, it should work, then. Except, of course, we’re talking magic, so logic may not have anything to do with it.” Oddly, the cinnamon bun looked appetizing again. He pulled it back toward his side of the table, picked it up, and took a huge bite out of it. “S’whedyawanuryt?”
Ariane gave him a puzzled (and slightly disgusted) look. He hastily chewed and swallowed. “Sorry. Where do you want to try it?”
“I’m not sure. It has to be somewhere private, and Aunt Phyllis is home – we can’t do it there. And we need a large body of water to materialize in when we return. Large enough to submerge both of us. I don’t think a bathtub will do it – not for two of us.”
Wally nodded. “My house, then. You probably didn’t notice the indoor pool –”
“You have an indoor pool?” Ariane’s voice implied she had never expected to be friends with someone who had his own swimming pool. Wally felt embarrassed.
“Yeah, just a little one, but big enough for both of us to, um, materialize in.” I feel like I’ve fallen into Star Trek, Wally thought. “Better yet, Ms. Carson is at church, and Felicia won’t crawl out of bed for hours yet.” Wally stuffed the rest of the cinnamon bun in his mouth. “Tinfinitynbond!”
Back to being a faithful sidekick, he thought a few minutes later as they left the Human Bean. He couldn’t argue with Ariane’s logic. If Merlin succeeded in setting himself up as King of the World, Ariane would be a threat to his power. He might need her alive now for some magical reason, but after he’d won...he would kill her. Or at least imprison her. No question. Abandoning the quest would only buy her a brief reprieve, not a full pardon.
But in the back of his mind, a little seed of doubt still lingered.
How do we know we can trust the Lady of the Lake any more than we can trust Rex Major?
Another phrase from Tolkien came to mind: Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards...
He snorted. Good advice. But it looks like we don’t have a choice.
~ • ~
Half an hour after leaving the Human Bean, Ariane and Wally stood on the edge of the Knights’ swimming pool, about to try something that, even though she knew she had done it the night before, seemed completely nuts in the cold light of morning.
But, like the Queen in Alice in Wonderland, she was getting used to believing several impossible things before breakfast...or just slightly after breakfast, in this case.
As promised, Ms. Carson was at church and Felicia still asleep. They’d crept through the house silent as mice to ensure she stayed that way. Now Wally looked around the cedar-walled room, dimly lit by the blue-green glow of the submerged lights around the edges of the pool. “So what do we do?”
“Jump in,” Ariane said.
“With our clothes on?”
Ariane gave him an over-sweet smile. “Well, I’m keeping mine on. I guess you can take yours off if you want to...”
He blushed. “Uh, no.”
“All right then.” She looked at the water. “On three. One...two...three!”
They splashed into the water simultaneously. It came up to Ariane’s chest, and almost to Wally’s shoulders. “I just feel silly,” Wally said. He pushed wet hair out of his face. “Now what?”
“Just...be quiet.” Ariane closed her eyes, listening to the song of the water, urging her to join in, to flow and frolic with it to river, lake, and sea. And mixed in with it...yes, there it was. Distant, faint, but unmistakable and exciting: the song of the sword. Keeping her eyes closed, she reached out to Wally. “Hold on,” she said.
Wally said something as he took her hand, but it was lost in the sudden whirling surge of water as she gave herself over to its call and let it carry her away...
...no, not just her, both of them. She could feel another presence with her in the rush and tumble of the water, holding on to her for dear life, and for a moment she resented it. She didn’t want to share the water with anyone else. She wanted to brush off the offending presence, let it swirl away into nothingness, but faint alarm bells rang in her mind at the thought. That’s Wally...it worked...he’s supposed to be here... What would happen if she did break loose from him? Would he materialize somewhere or would he simply dissolve, never to be seen again?
That horrifying thought snapped her back to her senses. They had been rushing along with the water with no aim or control. Now she cast around for some clue as to their whereabouts, and with some strange sense she had no name for – not quite sight, not quite smell, not quite hearing, and yet with elements of all three – she knew they were in the same lake she’d materialized in the night before, and realized it must be Buffalo Pound Lake, the reservoir that provided Regina’s drinking water.
Farther, she thought. Let’s see how far we can go...
Onward. She found the Qu’Appelle River outlet on the other side of the dam, and took it, following the water from river to river to river, over rocks, over waterfalls, through the great inland freshwater sea that was Lake Winnipeg, out into the Nelson River. The song of the sword began to grow too, as they moved north, but she still couldn’t quite pinpoint its source. She exerted more power. They streaked through the water like twin meteors crossing the night sky. Swirling currents, waterfalls, rapids, all meant nothing to the power of the Lady of the Lake...they sped through them as if they weren’t there. North...north...north, the sword calling to her...and then she sensed that it was no longer just north, but off to the northwest...
...and then they hit Hudson Bay.
Once when Ariane was ten years old and dashing down a sidewalk she had turned her head at the wrong moment and run into a telephone pole. More than the pain, she remembered the shock – the instant change from moving full flight to sitting motionless and bleeding on the sidewalk.
This was like that, but ten times worse. As soon as the water changed from fresh to salt, her power deserted her. With an explosion of spray, their bodies materialized. By instinct, she kicked, and her head burst out into the open air.
Wrapped in the cocoon of her power, she had been oblivious to the temperature of the water through which they raced. Now cold gripped her with breath-stopping suddenness. To her left she glimpsed a gray sky. Tossing waves stretched to the indistinct horizon, lost in a haze of distant rain, or snow. To her right she saw a shore as barren as the surface of Mars.
A hand still gripped hers, pulling her down...
“Let go!” she spluttered, jerking at it. The hand released her. Her head sank beneath the water at the same instant, but her feet were touching the bottom, and when she straightened up, her head and shoulders broke out into the frigid air. She heard coughing and saw Wally glaring at her.
“Not exactly first-class travel!” A wave splashed into his mouth, and he choked and sputtered. “Take us h-home!”
She reached for the power...and couldn’t find it.
Salt water. She could feel it on her skin, but to her power it was invisible. Lady of the Lake, not Lady of the Ocean...
“I can’t,” Ariane shouted. “I can’t do anything with salt water. We have to find the river that brought us here. It c-can’t be far away. Let’s get onto the sh-shore.” Ariane’s teeth were chattering.
They splashed onto the rock-strewn shore. Again Ariane reached for her power, intending to order the water off both their bodies...and again she failed. She felt a pang of fear. “I may h-have made a s-serious mi-mistake. We could f-f-freeze out here.”
“Not if I h-have anyth-thing to s-say about it.” Wally looked around. Ariane followed his gaze. Rocks. Water. Clouds. A high bluff that blocked the view inland. “How far n-north are we?”
“S-southern end of H-Hudson Bay, I th-think.”
“Still s-south of the tree line, then. Let’s c-climb up there,” he pointed to the top of the bluff, “and see what’s what. It’ll help k-keep us warm, if n-nothing else.”
They scrambled up the steep slope. The exercise did make Ariane feel a little – a very little – warmer. As their heads cleared the top of the bluff, Wally whooped. “Trees! Come on.” He scrambled over the lip of the bluff and onto the level ground beyond, then pulled her up after him.
“You’ve got m-matches?” Ariane said, her teeth starting to chatter again.
“No, but I’ve got something better.” Wally grinned at her. “A knife – and knowledge.”
Puzzled, but hoping desperately Wally knew what he was doing, Ariane followed him through the trees. At least here they were out of the wind’s reach. Wally cast around on the ground for dry wood, and built a pyramid of good-sized sticks over a small pile of twigs. In the centre he scraped dry, powdery punk from the underside of a dead log. Then he searched the ground until he found two branches, one quite thick, the other little more than a stick. He came back to Ariane and sat cross-legged, placing the branches in front of him.
“Willow,” he said, patting the thicker branch. “Softwood.” With his pocketknife, he carved a groove in it. Then he picked up the stick. “Tamarack,” he said. “Hardwood.” He shaped the end of it, then braced the thicker branch on his hip, slipped the stick into the groove, and began rubbing it back and forth, pressing down. Within moments he was breathing hard and sweating.
“I can see how it m-makes you warmer,” Ariane said, “b-but it’s not doing m-much for m-me.”
“Give it time,” Wally panted. To Ariane’s amazement, a tendril of smoke rose from where the sticks met, and the wood dust that had formed in the groove in the willow branch began to glow. Quickly, Wally scraped the glowing dust onto the dry, rotted wood he’d already put in the middle of his pyramid. A tiny flame licked up. The twigs ignited, then the larger sticks, and moments later, a fire was blazing cheerfully at Ariane’s feet.
She plopped down on the ground beside it, so close her clothes steamed in the chill air. As the warmth seeped into her bones, she realized she was exhausted. Not just physically, but mentally and in some other way she could hardly put a name to. Magically? Spiritually? Whatever reservoirs of inner strength she relied on to guide the Lady’s power were empty. She could feel her strength seeping back, but slowly...so slowly.
“Maybe if I had something to eat...” she said, thinking out loud. “I’m starving.”
Wally frowned, then suddenly brightened. He dug into the right pocket of his jeans and held out a small plastic box. “Tic Tac?”
Ordinarily Ariane hated mints, but she grabbed the box and poured the entire contents into her mouth, chewing and swallowing them in moments. “That’s better. But...” She gave Wally an apologetic look. “I can’t send us back. Not for a while. I’ve got to get my strength back.”
“Told you,” Wally said. “TANSTAAFL. ‘There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.’”
“Too bad, because I could sure use a free lunch right about now,” Ariane said. She looked at him hopefully. “Anything else to eat in those pockets of yours?”
“Not unless you like lint. But I’ll see what I can find in the forest.” Wally got to his feet. “Wait here.”
“Don’t get lost.”
“I won’t. A-plus in orienteering.” He moved off among the trees, and disappeared from sight.
Ariane couldn’t keep her head up – the heat from the fire had relaxed all her muscles. The ground was covered with spruce needles, but she curled up on it anyway. It was hard and the needles were sharp, but she was so tired...
She jerked awake an indeterminate time later to find Wally crouching on his heels beside her, holding out a branch covered with berries. “Arctic Bilberry,” he said. “Pretty much dried out, this time of year, but there ought to be some nutrition in them. Think of them as raisins. That’s about the best I can do.” He looked grave. “You’d better be able to get us back, or we’re going to get very hungry very soon.”
The berries, small and shriveled, were the most delicious-looking things Ariane had ever seen. She stripped the branch of them, stuffing them into her mouth. They took a lot of chewing, but again she felt a surge of power within her. Between the berries and the sleep...
“I think we can try it,” Ariane said. “Even if I can’t get us all the way home, I can get us most of the way...somewhere with people, anyway.”
“Then let’s go.” Wally jerked his head toward the western horizon, where the sky was several shades darker than the light gray clouds overhead. “I think there’s a storm coming. I really don’t want to be here when it hits.”
Ariane nodded. “We have to find the river,” she said. She went to the top of the bluff and looked both ways along the rock-strewn shore. It was hard to spot anything among the tumble of boulders, but something silvery-white caught her eye. She squinted, and caught a hint of movement, the flicker of water foaming across submerged stones. “There!” She pointed.
Together they clambered back down the bluff and picked their way through the stones until they reached the mouth of the river, where the water poured over wet rock into Hudson Bay. Ariane hesitated. The white-flecked, steel-gray water looked as cold and sharp as a frozen knife blade, and her flesh recoiled at the thought of stepping into it...but she remembered how the icy water of Wascana Lake had felt milk-warm around her bare feet. Maybe she didn’t have to worry about how cold water – well, fresh water, anyway – was anymore. At least, not when she was fully charged.
She snorted. What am I, a battery?
Wally didn’t have that protection, of course, and she felt sorry for him, but it wasn’t like there was any choice. She held out her hand to Wally. He took it, his fingers as cold as the air around them, and she waded in.
Sure enough, the water felt warm and comforting to her, though she heard Wally gasp. She kept walking until the water reached her knees. “Here we go.” She closed her eyes, reached for the power...and felt herself become one with the water.
Or two, counting Wally.
It was harder to make headway this time, heading upstream...up rivers, through dams. They passed through Buffalo Pound Lake, through the water treatment plant, followed the pipes into the city…
Her strength began to fail again. She hadn’t had as much to start with, and now she was losing the sense of where she was. She couldn’t find Wally’s house, couldn’t...
...no, wait, there – the pool they had started from. Out through the jets, and...
Ariane’s feet hit the bottom of the pool. She stood up, sputtering and gasping as her head and shoulders emerged into the air, and she felt the familiar sting of chlorine in her eyes. Cedar walls surrounded them. Wally shoved his dripping hair out of his eyes and looked around. “Home, sweet home,” he said. “You did it!”
With a sense of triumph, Ariane waded toward the pool’s ladder. She climbed up onto the tile floor, just in front of the door leading to the rest of the house. Wally climbed out beside her. Finding she still had a little power left, Ariane ordered the water to depart. Liquid sprayed out from their bodies, soaking the walls, the floor, the towels on a rack by the door...
...and Felicia, who had opened the door at precisely the wrong moment and was staring at them open-mouthed and dripping. She wore a skimpy bikini (If I had a figure like that, so would I, Ariane thought with a pang of jealousy) and carried a large pink – and now very wet – towel.
Wally recovered first. “Hi, sis. Have a good sleep?”
Felicia’s look of shock morphed into one of fury. “What is she doing here?”
Ariane was in no mood for Felicia’s petty hatred. She raised her hand, and a tendril of water twisted snakelike out of the pool. Ariane flicked her hand forward, and the water tendril darted at Felicia, stopping just short of her nose. Felicia jerked back, banging her head on the doorpost.
“What’s it to you?” Ariane snarled. “Last time I saw you, you were running for your life. Maybe you should start running again.”
Wally’s grin vanished. “Ariane. Please. She lives here, remember?”
“Yeah, I know, I’ve seen her lair.” The water tendril snapped forward again, spraying Felicia’s face. “Crawl back to it, Felicia. Crawl back to it, and don’t bother me again.”
Felicia’s face was ash-white, and her voice strained. “Get her out of our house, Wally. Maybe I can’t touch her – yet – but you know what I’ll do to you.”
Ariane resisted the urge to shove the tendril of pool water right down Felicia’s throat. Besides, she could feel her energy draining away. In a moment, she wouldn’t be able to control the tendril at all. So instead she flicked it once more at Felicia’s face, then jerked her hand back. The water slipped back into the pool with a slurping sound.
Felicia glared at Ariane, fists clenched, then turned and disappeared down the hall and through a door that revealed a brief glimpse of the laundry room before it slammed shut.
Ariane took a deep breath, then saw Wally glaring at her, too, his expression so much like Felicia’s that for the first time she saw the family resemblance.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.

~ • ~
Wally’s heart pounded in his chest. He dug his fingernails into the palms of his clenched hands. Anger, hot and unexpected, choked him as he tried to respond. All he managed to squeeze out of his tight throat was, “You’d better go.”
Ariane looked puzzled. “All right. But if she does anything to you –”
“I can deal with her!”
Ariane blinked. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“Did I do something –”
“I don’t need you to fight my battles for me!” The words exploded out of him. “I can handle Flish. I’ve been doing it for years.”
“Really.” Ariane’s reply was cool. “I guess that’s why she had you cleaning up her room.”
“Which I wouldn’t have had to do if you hadn’t trashed it! Every time you two get in a catfight I’m the one she takes it out on. Why don’t you just leave her alone?”
“After everything she’s done –”
“She’s my sister!” And until the last couple of years, she was my best friend. 
He expected Ariane to argue, but she surprised him. Her face softened. “Yes, she is,” she said, her voice strangely wistful. “I never had a brother or a sister, Wally. I guess I don’t understand how it is. I promise I’ll leave her alone...but if she interferes...”
“That’s all I ask.” Wally willed himself to calm down. He unclenched his fists and even managed a small smile. “Thank you.”
“Thank you. For the rescue this morning.” She grinned at him, and Wally felt the last of his anger melt away. “You really are my ‘Knight’ in shining armor.”
Wally groaned. “I wondered how long it would take before the puns on my last name started...”
“Hey, you’re lucky I put it off this long.” She laughed. “Anyway, you’re right, I should go.” She turned serious. “So…now you know what it’s like…are you really coming with me tonight? To the diamond mine? Last chance to back out.”
Wally’s heart raced. He still wasn’t entirely convinced they could trust the Lady. Travelling through the water with Ariane had been terrifying, and the thought of a face-to-face confrontation with Rex Major – Merlin! – was more frightening yet. But there was no way he was going to let Ariane go by herself. “I’m coming. But I don’t want to get caught off-guard like we were this afternoon. We should take some camping equipment with us...”
Ariane shook her head. “I don’t think we can. I barely managed to get both of us to Hudson Bay. I don’t think I can drag much more along.”
“One backpack, that’s all I’m saying. Lightweight tent, survival blankets, some high-energy bars, matches, flashlight, that kind of thing.”
“Well...” Ariane paused in thought. “Okay. I think I could manage a single backpack. But I’ll have to carry the backpack, not you. It seems...it just feels like it will be easier that way.”
“I’ll make a list and email it to you. You can add anything else you think of.” Wally took a deep breath. “What time do you want to go?”
“Let’s aim for half past seven. I’ll tell Aunt Phyllis we’re going to a movie. You come by around six-thirty and we’ll pack everything up, then head down to the lake. We can get anywhere we want from there, and it’d be real hard to explain both of us going into the bathroom at the same time – even if we didn’t follow it up by disappearing into thin air!”
“OK,” Wally said. “Now you really had better get out of here – before Ms. Carson comes back.”
He saw Ariane out the front door and then hurried to the garage, where they kept the family camping equipment. He had a lot to do in the next few hours.
Wally Knight, Sidekick to the Lady of the Lake, he thought as he pulled a backpack down from the shelf above the washing machine. He frowned. Somehow “sidekick” didn’t sound distinguished enough...
He grinned. “Wally Knight,” he said out loud. “Companion of the Order of the Lady.”
Much better! He unzipped the backpack and started packing.

~ • ~
Twenty minutes after leaving Wally’s house, Ariane reached her block. During her walk, she had rehearsed various explanations, trying to figure out what she would put in the note she was going to leave for Aunt Phyllis before she set out with Wally for the “movie.” She had no idea when they would be back.
Or if they would be back.
She stopped suddenly.
A mud-splattered brown Buick that she didn’t recognize was parked in front of her house – and the driver was on the front step...
...talking to Aunt Phyllis.
There was no mistaking that gray-streaked ponytail: it was the man who had chased her that morning. How many cars does he have, anyway?
Ariane didn’t know what to do. If she gave in to her instinct to dash up the walk and protect Aunt Phyllis, the ponytailed man would just grab her – and Rex Major would win. Besides, it didn’t look like he was threatening her aunt. As far as Ariane could tell, they were just talking.
But...about what?
The ponytailed man had his back to her, and if Aunt Phyllis had noticed her, she didn’t give any sign of it. Ariane ducked behind the hedge between Aunt Phyllis’s house and the one next door and, half-crouched, crept closer.
The neighbour’s dry, brown lawn crunched under her feet, and she had to stop farther from the porch than she’d hoped, afraid the ponytailed man would hear the movement in the bushes. Snatches of his words drifted in her direction through the thin screen of red and yellow leaves still clinging to the hedge’s dry brown twigs. If she cocked her head just right, she could see the back of his head through a gap in the foliage.
“...principal has instituted...policy...following up all suspensions...concerned by...attitude not what it should be...”
“I understand.” Aunt Phyllis’s voice came through loud and clear; she sounded like an actress projecting to the back row of a theater. “But it’s not my problem anymore.”
“I don’t understand...your niece...” the man’s voice disappeared into mumble.
“She’s gone,” Aunt Phyllis said. “Moved out. She’s old enough to live on her own, she said, and off she went. I couldn’t stop her. Didn’t really want to. She’s been nothing but trouble since she got here.”
Ariane couldn’t believe her ears. Aunt Phyllis was protecting her – but how did she know Ariane needed protection?
The man ran his fingers through his hair. “...saw her yesterday...didn’t say anything...”
“Why should she? She probably doesn’t want the school to know where she’s gone. She certainly didn’t tell me.”
“...irregular...school board must be notified...”
“Notify away. I’ve washed my hands of her. It’s got nothing more to do with me. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do. Good day.” And she turned and went into the house, closing the door firmly behind her.
The man stood on the step for a moment. He raised his hand as though intending to knock again, then abruptly turned and strode back down the walk to the waiting Buick. Ariane scurried in closer to the hedge and scrunched down as close to its prickly branches as she could. If he spotted her now...
He didn’t. He started the Buick and roared down the street. The tires squealed as he ran the stop sign at College and turned left toward downtown.
Ariane straightened up to stare after him.
“I think you and I should have a talk,” Aunt Phyllis said from behind her.