Chapter 11

When Alder opened his eyes, it was to find that he and Oak were no longer outside in the rain. They were inside, somewhere, and staring at a front door.

It wasn’t Alder’s front door; it wasn’t Oak’s, either. But it could have been, almost. This door had the same three skinny rectangular panes of glass set along the top of the door, just as did Oak’s, just as did Alder’s. The knob was a silver orb, just like Oak’s, just like Alder’s. But unlike Oak’s front door, which was painted orange, and unlike Alder’s door, which was painted green, this door was not painted at all. Natural wood grains swirled across its surface in burls and whirls and knots. And they seemed almost to shimmer.

Alder looked away from the door and over at Oak, who turned to him with eyes round as records.

“Are we in your house?” Alder whispered.

Oak shook her head. “Are we in yours?”

Alder didn’t bother pointing out that if they had been in his house, he wouldn’t have asked Oak if they were in hers. He just shook his head.

Then he heard a sound—a movement—coming from behind them.

Alder turned to see that the house in which they found themselves was laid out identically to his—a short entry hall that branched, to the left, into a smallish family room and led, to the right, to another hallway which, he assumed, would lead to three small bedrooms. The sound had come from the left—the family room.

Lightning lit up the hallway for a quick second, like the flash of a camera, and then came an ominous rumble of thunder.

Alder and Oak looked at one another. Without a word, they turned back to the door, reaching in unison for the knob, anxious to get out of . . . wherever they were. But before they reached it, they heard another sound that froze them in their tracks.

Meow.

“Fern,” said Alder.

“Walnut,” said Oak.

And they turned together back down the hallway, leaving the door behind them.

In the living room, the only light came from the fireplace, cheerfully crackling. Orange flames licked the logs, and just as Oak and Alder crossed the threshold, a log popped and sent a spark zigzagging upward into the chimney.

There was a shelf crowded full of odd little knickknacks, a table set for tea, a fringed antique rug with a fading, complicated pattern of vines and flowers. A low-backed couch and an overstuffed chair, angled toward the fireplace.

Someone was sitting in the chair; Oak and Alder could only see the top of the person’s head, the messy tuft of brownish-grayish hair.

Whoever sat in the chair was no taller than a child. Oak and Alder could see legs, too short to reach the floor, and swinging feet, wearing shining brown leather boots.

Then, they heard it again—Meow.

Emboldened, Alder stepped forward.

Beside him, Oak cleared her throat and said, “Excuse me. I wonder—is that my kitten?”

“Your kitten?” Alder nearly forgot for the moment that they were in a stranger’s house, that they had no idea how they had gotten there. “If it’s anyone’s kitten, it’s my kitten.”

“There, there, children.” came a voice from the chair. It was a male voice, but rather high-pitched, and it was not a voice either Alder or Oak had ever heard before. “No need to argue,” the voice continued, and then the feet stretched toward the floor, and the owner of the feet and the voice plopped out of the chair. “We’ll sort everything out,” he said. “After all, there is more than one way to skin a cat.”

A noise came out of Alder—kind of a squeak—and beside him, Oak cleared her throat uncomfortably.

And then the odd little figure stepped away from the chair and toward Alder and Oak, who still stood in the room’s open doorway. As he scuttled toward them, Alder reached out and clutched Oak’s arm. She put her hand on top of his.

The boots caught and reflected the flames as if they’d recently been shined. Above the boots were woolen socks—tall ones—and then short pants—not shorts, exactly, for they fell below the knee and had buttons there, cinching them close. Above the short pants was a waistcoat and a watch chain that disappeared into a small pocket, presumably where a watch was resting.

And there was an orange kitten cradled in two hands—strange, tiny, pink hands—and then there was the face. Hair all over, white in the center, fading out to grayish brown, and a long, pointed snout, with a burst of bristly white whiskers on either side. Jewel-black eyes—shiny—and when the creature smiled, two uneven rows of pointed ivory teeth grinned out.

Alder felt his mouth flopping open and shut like a fish’s.

“Hello,” said the creature. “I’m Mort. I’ve been waiting for you.”

It couldn’t be Mort, thought Alder.

Except, of course, it was—Mort, the taxidermied opossum from his bookshelf at home, but now here, the size of a six-year-old child, fully dressed, and clutching, Alder was certain, his kitten, Fern.

That was the most important part of this situation, he decided with a clarity that surprised him. He had to get Fern safely away, and then, later, he could try to work out what exactly all of this meant.

But then Oak stepped forward. “Walnut!” she said. “You have my kitten—what are you doing to my kitten?”

“Your kitten?” said Alder. “That’s Fern!”

“I don’t know who Fern is,” said Oak, and she stomped her foot, sounding angry. “All I know is that . . . thing has my Walnut. Give him back. At once!”

Mort began to hop a little, foot to foot, nervously. “Well, well,” he said, and his boots made clippity-cloppity sounds on the wood floor, like a pony might. “Well, well.” He seemed, Alder thought, as if he were a little bit afraid of them.

And then the creature backed up to set the kitten down on the chair—gently, Alder noticed—before suddenly, freakishly, curling his black-tinged lips back into an awful grin and freezing in place, his eyes shining like marbles.

Meow, said the kitten, and it hopped down from the chair and began sniffing the boots of the completely unmoving opossum.

“What is happening?” Oak asked. She was trembling all over; her hands were shaking, her teeth chattering. It was fear.

“I think . . . ,” said Alder, and he stepped slowly forward, toward the frozen figure, “I think . . . he’s playing possum.”

It was impossible that this figure was actually Mort, the harmless taxidermied opossum that had stood, all of Alder’s life, on the bookshelf in the front room of his home. But, impossible or not, it seemed that, indeed, this Mort was somehow a version of his very own Mort.

And perhaps it was because of his lifetime affection for the smaller Mort, or perhaps it was because his father had given Mort to his mother as a gift many years ago . . . whatever the reason, Alder found that he did not feel afraid anymore, but rather almost overwhelmed by a desire to help this creature who, he was certain, needed him.

“It’s okay,” Alder said, taking slow and careful steps away from the doorway and toward the dummy-still Mort. “We aren’t going to hurt you,” he soothed, and his voice was gentle like his mother’s sometimes was, the voice he used with his kitten back at home.

The kitten—Alder’s eyes flitted away from Mort and down to the orange cat still sniffing the polished boots. It did look quite a bit like his Fern, but, Alder realized, this kitten was bigger than Fern, rounder of belly and wider of face.

“Walnut,” said Oak behind him, and the kitten turned and pranced, purred and wound himself between Oak’s legs until she scooped him up.

Fern was still missing, and whether she was here or back in his yard or someplace else entirely, Alder did not know. He would find her, Alder promised, but first, he had to help Mort.

“It’s okay,” said Alder again, and he reached out a hand, hesitating a moment before resting it gently on the opossum’s wrist, which stuck out past the sleeve of his jacket, the fur there looking so vulnerably exposed. The fur was soft, just like Mort’s fur back home, but there was warmth underneath—the pulse of life. Alder could feel the rapid fluttering of Mort’s pulse just beneath his pelt.

Then there was another noise—Mew—and this time it was Alder’s kitten who emerged, as if nothing was unusual at all, from Mort’s kitchen.

Alder bent to pick up Fern, and he held her soft, warm body close to his chest and kissed her sweet little head. She began to purr, a loud and friendly rumble that seemed much too large for her body.

“Ah,” said Mort, whose arms dropped to his sides. He shook his head as if to clear it. “Sorry about that. Old habits die hard.”