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In eighteen hours, one world can become another. A person can go from one end of the earth to the other, or, in Rika’s case, from one point in the space-time continuum to one that seems to be about four hundred years before.
Another way to say that, is that a person can drive from the dead middle of the Midwest to the dead middle of a mountain chain that may or may not be part of the Appalachians, but that bears absolutely no resemblance to any town she’d ever seen before. And that bear part? That’s not just a pun.
“Jamesburg,” she said as she rolled past the sign welcoming her to the town that claimed no state on the sign. “Gotta Love It.”
She shook her head. “We’ll see, I guess.”
Eighteen hours on the road with nothing to eat except a couple salads from a drive through and enough coffee to kill a more reasonable creature, had just about worn her to the bone. She lost phone reception about five miles before the welcome sign, but it came back when she neared the center of town. The GPS had long since given up trying to keep track of where the hell she’d managed to go, so she relied on a very lucky series of turns that ended up dropping her off right where she was supposed to go.
“The universe has a way of working out,” Thor had said. “You just have to let it.”
Rika laughed, a little bitter, a little pissed, but really, she was laughing at herself. She’s the one who made the trip, she’s the one who couldn’t let this bear go. He chased her at first, but now it was turnabout is fair play time, she figured. She didn’t want to be found naked in the woods, and maybe he didn’t want to be found in Jamesburg, but... at some point, in the eighteen hours of broad, golden fields that turned to forests somewhere in Missouri, she decided that maybe he’d been right about that whole universe thing.
She could have just called it fate, but then again, fate? What is this, an old Greek play?
By the time she rolled her mom’s gas guzzling Wrangler – the irony of a hippie with a gas guzzler wasn’t lost on her – to a stop in front of the Jamesburg town hall, it was just about three in the afternoon. And, there wasn’t a whole lot going on.
“Pick up, sis,” she said angrily into her phone as she rang Petunia, unsuccessfully, for about the thirteenth time in the last thirty minutes. She swore again and set her phone down on the center console, wondering how the hell she was going to hunt down a rabbit who didn’t pick up her phone.
That her sister might, right at that second, be on a work crew doing community service didn’t occur to Paprika until a van marked JAMESBURG SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT pulled up about eight spaces from her Jeep, and the most rag-tag bunch of men piled out. There were muscled guys, scrawny ones, men inked from head to toe and one that looked like his eyes were about to bug out of either side of his head. He licked his lips a lot, for some reason, she noticed.
“Holy shit, it’s a chain gang,” Rika said, gawking openly at the parade of orange-clad men, most of whom would have been right at home half-naked in a desk calendar, maybe dressed up as a firefighter or a police officer. Or wearing a g-string, she thought with a giggle.
“All right, ya buncha mongrels, line up.” A voice boomed from the front seat, preceding the appearance of an enormous specimen, with a tattoo poking out the top of his shirt. He was in a tight-fitting, well-tailored khaki uniform, which just about made Paprika’s heart jump out of her chest. “A. MORGAN” was on a name plate above his badge. “Let’s get this over with. I’m starving,” he added.
All the guys shuffled into place, even the one who had features vaguely resembling a salamander who kept licking his lips.
It was rude, and she knew it, but Rika just couldn’t stop staring at the deputy with the huge forearms and the shaggy, brown hair. She was reminded of Thor, of course, which just got her heart beating even faster.
“Hey Ash,” a much, much, smaller man, also dressed in a Deputy’s uniform, said, as he hopped out of the passenger seat. This guy was scratching at his neck like he had fleas. “You seen the little one? That rabbit whose just on part-timer duty?”
The big guy lifted his shoulders, and when he did, his trapezius muscles looked like they were going to rip through his epaulet-cuffed shirt. “She’s probably hiding under the seat. She does that to fu— to mess with me,” he said, catching his swear.
At once, all of the others – the deputy included – started chuckling. “My mate, she tells me to cut out the swearing, that the baby’ll catch it and start in with the sailor talk. So, since I like keeping her happy and—“
“And getting’ laid without having to beg a fox? Yeah, yeah, we know,” the other deputy said, the laughter trailing off. “Anyways, all’a you, file in. Not much use running.”
Okay so they’re just letting a bunch of prisoners check themselves into jail? What kind of Mayberry RFD place is this? No wonder my sister likes it so—holy shit!
With a great deal of effort, the huge man bent down, crawled into the back of the transport van, and re-emerged holding a violently squirming, but apparently very happy, Petunia. As he set her down, she planted a kiss on his cheek, and then grabbed the little guy and gave him a big one on the lips. Neither of them really reacted, but it seemed to Paprika that her impulsive kissing might be genetic.
“All right, all right, simmer down Lewis,” Morgan said. “Where’d you put the cuffs this time?”
She shrugged. “Maybe under the back seat? I don’t remember.” It had been years since the two sisters saw each other in the flesh, but Paprika would know that lusty albino anywhere. “You might wanna look,” Petunia said.
Morgan heaved a huge sigh and stooped down to fish the cuffs out as Petunia – and, Paprika, though she was a little embarrassed to admit it – watched his beautiful butt flex against his khakis.
“Good show?” he asked, tousling her hair when he stood again. “What are you going to do when you’re outta time? Gotta be coming on pretty quick here.”
“Three weeks,” Petunia said. She still hadn’t noticed her sister. It wasn’t hard to see why. “But it doesn’t matter, I gotta roommate from the internet. Big bear guy.”
“You mean you’re subletting a room? And acting like he’s your boyfriend?”
“Yeah, pretty much,” she said. “But once he shows up, he won’t be able to say no to this.” Petunia made an exaggerated show of the curves that Paprika had, pretty much forever, been jealous of. For a rabbit, Tuna was put together pretty damn well, even if she was about six steps past “zany” and right into “crazy as hell” territory.
Still she was Paprika’s big sister. Even if she was on a chain gang, and even if she did sexually harass the law enforcement officers in charge of her, she was always going to be the girl who brought Paprika a big chocolate Easter bunny – like a solid one, not the cheap ones from Walgreen’s – when she had her first big break up.
That might sound a little weird, but among other things, the sisters shared a certain sardonic wit. Petunia also brought her a huge t-bone steak, but that was a different thing altogether.
Rika had just started to roll down her window when her sister turned away from Itchy and Giant, and instantly perked up. “Rika?” she screeched, running straight past the two cops and right at the Wrangler. Morgan and the other guy exchanged confused glances, and then a shrug, before disappearing back into the station.
“What are you doing here? How did you even get here? Oh wait, get a load of this.” Petunia put her hand on Rika’s shoulder, getting her attention.
“That guy with the long hair coming out of the front? The one getting on the... holy shit that’s a big bike.”
“Yeah, but bear’s ride bigger ones. Everything about bears is bigger.”
It took a second for that to register. “Wait, what?” Paprika asked.
“Nothing. Anyway, that’s Erik Danniken, the town alpha. Look at that hair. And that human is his mate. Obnoxious bi—“
“Did you just say ‘alpha’? Like, that’s what they call the mayor? And why is everyone so, uh, big here? Well except that weird pale guy that came out of the pokey van.”
“He’s a salamander – that’s Leon. He gets hauled in all the time for peeing in places he’s not supposed to. And those other guys, most of them were werewolves, but the big cop that I kept getting to bend over, that’s Ash Morgan, he’s a pro-wrestler or something that turned into a cop. I don’t pay much attention to anything except his ass.”
Paprika blinked, and then opened her eyes wide. “You... what?”
“I’ll go over it all later. Jamesburg is very much a place of its own. God, look at Danniken’s butt,” Petunia was practically drooling. “I promised to help replant the fields I tore up, and I got out of a two-to-ten. I’d be the only girl in the prison, so I think they went easy on me. There was some kind of crazy beaver that tried to blow up the city a year or so back, but no one’s ever found her.”
There wasn’t much that Rika could do except stare. A very strangely dressed man – he was wearing skin-tight pants of all sorts of colors, a sleeveless, unbuttoned vest, and something that looked like the shoes Julie Andrews wore when she played Peter Pan. He was sauntering, in a slightly unsteady way, around the parking lot.
“Is he high or something?”
Petunia shook her head. “Nah, no reason to be here, the drugs wouldn’t do anything you couldn’t see anyway. That’s Glenn, he’s, well, I think you better meet him, I don’t want to ruin the surprise.”
This was a lot to take in. Paprika slowly became aware that she’d been shaking her head for at least several seconds, and then rubbed her eyes with the back of her hands. “So they’re all...”
“Shifters? Nah, not all of them. There’s Jenga – he’s the witch doctor with the zombies I told you about, except they’re more like Frankensteins than zombies, but they’re a cute couple. Then there are, yeah, lots of bears, turtles, foxes, what-have-you. We got a little coven of witches, but they keep to themselves except when they try to turn town residents into potions.”
Petunia took a deep breath, and kept on rattling before Rika could get a word in edgewise, probably for the best. “And then there is Leon, he’s a drunk but also a salamander. He’s all right, if a little weird. Which, coming from me, that’s something.” An unsteady laugh came out of Petunia. “And then, let’s see. Right, the foxes, the corgi family who lives in a house where everything is short – which is super adorable – and then, oh right, the town permit officer is a hedgehog, and there’s a bat girl who may or may not be a vampire.”
Paprika had both hands on the sides of her face, her mouth was hanging open, and she was just trying to process. “That’s a lot.”
“You’ll get used to it. I have a little apartment out back of my house. I had to rebuild after I tried to catch a cowboy bear down there, and—you know what? That’s not important. I’m glad you’re here, sis!”
The two of them held a tight embrace, both just about vibrating with nervous energy, but neither wanting to break the hug. “It’s been a while, huh?” Paprika finally said. She was getting a little misty in the eyes, but then again, so was Petunia.
“A lot’s happened,” Petunia said, growing slightly wistful in her voice. “But I think life is finally turning around.” She shrugged. “Or at least, if it’s not, I’m going to have a hot roommate in a couple days, so what the hell. Speaking of, what happened to—?”
She trailed off, catch a glimpse of the very obvious downward gaze that her sister took on. And it wasn’t just from exhaustion. Petunia, maybe not the most socially adept rabbit ever, was able to read that look, and she let it drop without another word. “Well hey,” she said, “want to go get a beer? The Tavern’s just down from here about three blocks. You can meet some of the crazies.”
“They all drink at three thirty on Tuesday afternoon?”
“The colorful ones anyway. Not a lot to do here. Shifters have a siesta sorta thing, except it usually involves beer, and a lot of food. Like, a whole lot.”
The thought of an ice cold beer was pretty inviting. “Yeah, all right, I mean, I’m on vacation, or moving, or whatever the hell I’m doing. So I may as well get used to the place, right? When in Rome.”
“Oh honey,” Petunia said patronizingly. “Rome ain’t got nothin’ on Jamesburg.”
As Rika started her engine, and began the slow roll to the courthouse exit, she remembered the strange Peter Pan wandering around, and found him doing a handstand. “And nowhere to start with the crazies than with this one.”
Petunia got a look of slight concern on her face. “Maybe wait on this one? He’s... no, you know what, Glenn’s the perfect guy to meet first. Ask him about his fairy dust.”
“Hey there!” Rika called to the jester-clad fellow as she rolled down the window. “I’m new in town, know any good places to eat?”
He looked back and forth, and then hopped from his hands to his toes with agility that a world class ballerina would have envied. Glenn assumed a very strange, sneaking position, half crouched down with his hands out to his sides like he was trying to infiltrate a pharmaceutical plant without anyone noticing.
Petunia wouldn’t stop giggling. “Don’t forget the fairy dust.”
Rika shushed her with a wave of her hand. Glenn kept right on sneaking around. First he hid behind the pole of the stop sign about five feet from Petunia’s window, then he cartwheeled and turned a very skillful somersault.
“What am I looking at?”
“Glenn! Come over here!” Petunia squealed. “My sister needs a drink!”
He froze in place, balanced on the ball of his left foot with his right leg bent at a strange angle in front of him. Very slowly he raised it the rest of the way and tucked it behind his head without using his hands. The slow motion contortionist act continued with him somehow rolling onto his hands, and then back to his feet in a kind of half-cartwheel half-handspring.
“How did you see me?” he whispered, incredulously, when he approached the driver’s side window. “I’m invisible.”
“No you’re not, good God,” Petunia squawked from the passenger seat. “This is my sister, Paprika. She’s named that because my parents were hippies and she was born with red hair.”
Rika pursed her lips and shot Petunia a nasty glare. But then she felt Glenn take her hand and kiss it, first appropriately, and then up all the way to her shoulder, just like Gomez Addams did with Morticia. “Hellloooo,” he said fluttering his eyelashes. “Since you saw me, you’re destined to be my fairy princess.”
Petunia was now giggling madly, and Paprika was about to hit her.
“So, uh, how about a place to eat?” the red-haired rabbit sister asked again, really feeling like it was time to backhand her older sister. “I’ll have to think about the princess thing.”
“No!” Glenn shouted, dramatically, like he was Romeo and just learned of Juliet’s passing via a third party, because instead of being with her, he’d decided to go watch the Venice team play London in a medieval soccer match and get drunk. “No! You mustn’t take my heart!”
He started spinning in slow, obviously very skilled pirouettes. “My queen, my queen, she’s gone from my life.”
“I’m not gonna get a restaurant recommendation out of you, am I?” Paprika asked.
Petunia was howling. “Ask him about the dust!”
With a deep breath, and a heavy sigh, Paprika relented. “Okay what’s this about fairy dust?”
As soon as she asked, her strange courter froze in place like he’d just had a bucket of liquid nitrogen dumped on him. “You can’t see me!” he hissed. “You don’t know I’m here!”
“I’m sorry if I offended you, I—“
Interrupting Paprika’s apology, and accompanied by Petunia’s one rabbit laugh track, Peter Pan spun on his toe, and flung two fistfuls of glitter right into Paprika’s face. He made a poof sound with his mouth, and ran off, shouting that he was invisible and going back to the fairy kingdom.
“I’m covered in glitter,” Rika said flatly. “He threw glitter at me.”
“What? No he didn’t, sis,” Petunia insisted. “That’s fairy dust! And now you’re invisible!”
“I really, really, really need that beer right now.”
Petunia was screaming, howling, blustering with laughter so hard she was turning purple. Good thing it didn’t take much effort to say “go straight” and “turn left.”