In the light of the morning sun, as petals whooshed behind him in his trailing flurry, Windston, racing rooftop to rooftop, tree to tree, realized something. He was alone. There were people all around, glaring at him from porches or as they worked their chores. But he was alone, all alone, and for the first time since before the Flowers family took him in – and he was a baby during all of that. He wasn’t the kind of alone one seeks to be to be by themselves. But alone as a condition, as a hard fact. He was alone. He was actually alone. The more he ran, which he did as he was late to Mayor Bo’s summons, the more he realized just how alone he was. His parents were gone forever. He had no siblings, cousins or friends. No nearby neighbors looked out for him. And he couldn't think of one pretty girl that he liked that actually liked him back. And yeah, he did have one friend in King Frank. But that didn't count, as King Frank was old, lived in the woods, and was, himself, alone. Windston realized – and really admitted to himself – that he was such a freak, even bullies avoided him; he was too strong, too fast, and impervious to pain. So, if this meeting with Bo turned out like he thought it would, and he was kicked out of Zephyr for good, no one would stand up for him. No one would shout that this isn't fair. No one would say he'd done his best. No one at all, now that his parents were gone. Because no one would care.

  And he realized, as he skidded to a stop on the road in front of the mayoral mansion and peered through the dust cloud at what had been his home for as long as he could remember, that… he didn't care either.

  What he saw inside reaffirmed that feeling, or lack thereof.

  Movers toted his mother's wardrobe. In the kitchen, he saw a guy pocketing silver spoons. Down the hall from there he saw some other guy wrestling a painting off the wall. None of them so much as glanced at him, said they were sorry for his loss. Frankly, he didn't expect them to. He expected them to take what they could while the getting was good, just as Bo Beeman had done in winning the emergency election.

  And so, as he found his way to his father's office, which was now Bo Beeman’s, he made it a point to himself that he had to do what he could to get back the only thing he truly thought of as his, or else end the worst week ever with nothing.

  “You sent for me, Mayor Bo?” he asked.

  Bo, who had been jamming his palms into his eyes, blinked up at him. “Take a seat,” he said with a gesture toward the opposite side of the desk.

  Windston hesitated before stepping further inside. He'd often played in this office when it was his father's. But it felt odd setting foot within it now that it was so suddenly Bo Beeman's. Windston’s father's books were already missing from shelves that now displayed a collection of rooster figurines. And the bear skin on the floor was gone, replaced by a bright rug elves wove in Mannley. Despite the further jarring of these changes, Windston persisted; he focused on what he was forced to abandon on the floor in the office closet. His gaze was intense in focus. It was aimed in that direction. His mouth all but hung until it flooded, forcing him to swallow.

  Bo seemed to notice. Everyone in town had seen the boy flaunting the peculiar sword the day before the attack. Mayor Flowers must have had a lapse in judgement. Or maybe he had had a moment of clairvoyance. Had he not given the boy, as a reckless gift, that sword, how many others might have died?

  “Now, I see you looking over there at that closet, Windston,” he said, snapping Windston out of his daze. “We both know what's in there.”

  Windston met his eyes, but only as a glance.

  “Now I know how you must feel about all this,” he went on, his eyes droopy, the whites red and streaked with veins not so unlike the purple bolts that flashed about the surface of Windston's very unusual sword. “Do you hear what I’m telling you, boy?” Bo asked louder this time.

  Windston looked at Bo, who had opened his desk drawer and, while blabbing on about something, managed to stack an entire pile of letters from it on his desktop without Windston’s notice.

  “As you can see, I've accumulated my own little Ice Mountain of complaints here. And they're all about you. So, we’re gonna figure this out.”

  “Figure what out?” Windston asked.

  “How to pay for the damages you caused,” Bo replied. “These are complaints about what happened Saturday. Porch bannisters, windows, tables – everything else you destroyed.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, oh. Oh, crap,” Bo said. Standing, groaning, he said, “What a week,” and shuffled on slippers to a cart new to the office. On it was a doyly beneath three overturned glasses and a bottle of Honey Bo Beeman’s Premium Bee-Tree Mead.

  “I'm sorry about your parents,” he said. He poured a glass and downed it, poured another and returned to his seat. There, he slid the pile of letters back into his desk drawer, closed it. Next, he leaned on his elbows, rubbing his temples as his glasses, crooked and sliding forward, slipped off his face and fell on the table.

  The clatter drew Windston’s attention away from the closet. But the blue light showing through the gap beneath the door drew it back.

  “They were great people, and I'm sorry they had to go the way they went,” Bo said.

  “Thank you,” Windston said back.

  “At least,” he said, “if they had to go at all, they got to go together. Most couples hope for that kind of… ending.”

  Windston didn’t know what to say to that.

  “As for what else happened… heroics aside, I'm just gonna be frank with you. You’re lucky your inheritance just about covers the damages. Sign here.”

  Windston didn't know what Bo meant, and when Bo handed him a form to sign, he didn’t realize he was signing his inheritance away.

  “As for the thing you call your sword,” Bo said, folding and then pocketing the form. “Well, if I could so much as touch it, I’d take it on rounds, see what I could get for it. But I can't, so it's just gonna have to sit put while I inquire.”

  “Can't I just have it back?” Windston asked.

  “No,” Bo said, “and I'll tell you why.”

  But he didn't, and as Windston sat there waiting, he wondered if stealing it back would really be so bad. It was his, after all.

  “You grossly misused it.” Satisfied with the delayed blurt, the mayor smiled at Windston and took another drink, this time from a smaller bottle from the desk drawer. “You meant well. No one doubts that,” he lied, his eyes tracking for an instant toward the drawer of letters that proved otherwise. “But you… you really kind of,” he said, first shrugging, and then imitating the fateful swing.

  Windston remembered the moment as if it were happening. How he heard a noise, thought it was a drakul, and simply… swung.

  He had rehearsed an explanation with King Frank just earlier in the morning. Frank had told him he’d need to have something ready in case Bo brought it up. But he forgot his lines. Instead, he said, “She was already dead. I mean, she was gonna be dead – I swear. She was still alive but she was dying. That drakul that tossed her… it pretty much bit her in half. I just…” Gulp. “…finished her off. I’m sorry.”

  “I know,” Bo said, raising a hand of protest to shush him. “And the porches you demolished were probably infested with termites, the flattened tables weak at the knees. I’ve been explaining the reality to folks all about it these past days. But you know what?”

  “What?”

  Another shrug as Bo averted his gaze to his desktop. Windston looked at it too. It was his father’s, and he had loved it. Its top was glass, and in it, encased, was a map of the known world. “They don't care. And they’re simply not willing to try. Which is why we…” Bo said, groaning as he rose without finishing his sentence; he headed to the chest that had probably always sat in that exact spot at the back of the office. He opened it, its hinges whining, and, after fishing around, said, rising in a groan, “…pivot.”

  “Pivot,” Windston repeated.

  He returned to the desk with a short sword. It was in a wooden scabbard wrapped from hilt to tip with a strip of flaking leather. “This,” Bo said, unsheathing the sword halfway down the blade, “was the great hero of Zephyr's sword.” Oily steel flashed blotted and rusty in morning sunlight. “It's almost perfect, even aged as it is. There's only just this notch here near the top. You wouldn't believe me if I told you how it got there. You know them big fat thigh bones near the top of the bigger drakuls’ legs?”

  Windston nodded, remembering in an unsettling flashback a bit more than just that.

  “Well,” Bo said, seeming to notice Windston’s sudden change in demeanor. “Anyway….” He re-sheathed the sword. It clicked into place at the cross guard so that, if shook upside down, the sword would hesitate before slipping out. “King Frank found this out behind my old house a couple years back. It's a special sword. A very, very special sword.”

  Windston already knew about the sword. Frank had told him all about it. He had tried to sell it. Nobody wanted it, and so he gave it to Bo.

  “Now I know you're probably wondering 'why me and why now?' The reason is simple: you'll need a good, safe weapon at your side. That is, if you wanna keep the peace around here.”

  “Keep the peace?” Windston asked.

  Bo unsheathed the sword in one jerky and graceless motion. “May I?” he asked; but he didn’t wait for an answer. He stepped forward and lightly touched Windston's shoulders with the blade, two taps per side. With his right hand he touched Windston's petal-ridden mess of blonde hair and said, “I knight thee, Windston Flowers. First and only knight of Zephyr. Captain of the Watch of the Town of Flowers. Rise.”

  Windston's eyes widened. He had dreamed of one day becoming a knight. He’d seen one before, a real knight, all clad in steel armor. He was on Rat Road, Old Rat Road. Someone said he’d been commissioned to kill a hag. But Windston wasn’t sure.

  Bo Beeman handed him the junky sword.

  “As mayor, I give you my word that we will provide you with the necessities required to guard our township and her people. We will provide shelter. We will provide food. All we ask in return is that you courageously defend us.” He said this in a tone very different from his usual manner of speaking, without the typical twang of his thick Zephyrian accent.

  “Do you promise to provide safety to the weak?” he asked Windston.

  Windston nodded.

  “Will you destroy our enemies and arrest our threats?”

  Windston nodded.

  “Will you keep watch over us in our waking? During our sleep?”

  Windston nodded.

  “Then arise once again, a new man and a knight.”

  Windston rose and Bo, who stood as straight as he could, solemnly turned and all but marched around to the other side of his desk. He plopped down in his chair. There, he had another drink.

  Windston sat too, stifling gasps. He forgot all about his sword for the moment.

  He would live up to Bo's expectations; he would protect his realm.

  But that it'd be boring, tedious, lonely, lackluster, rainy and gusty, at times cold, other times hot, and always with an infestation of bees to tickle the pollen-covered arms and cheeks, he was not aware. That's exactly how it was as the lonely knight of the town of flowers.

  Bo had promised him a fort. He said he'd have it built just off Rat Road, Old Rat Road, east of Zephyr. What Windston got instead was three boards and some nails. And his father's old bear skin rug, although he couldn't figure out why. The skin cast little shade when hung up. So it lay, dirty and rotting, on the forest floor.

  Bo had instructed him to ride the trails that encircled town twice daily, once in the morning, and once in the afternoon. But he had given him no horse, leaving Windston little choice but to run.

  He was promised food for every meal, and a supply of fresh clothing every season so that he might appear honorable to his foes. He received only bundles of jerky and jars of bee byproduct bi-weekly. That and simple plain white cotton clothes to wear beneath rusting ring mail.

  His hair grew shaggy, his clothes were all ripped and stained. And Bo’s sword, which by now was all bent up and even rustier, was left forgotten and dangling somewhere.

  He was haggardly, rough, and bored to the point of near insanity at times. Worse: he had even gotten the idea that maybe, just maybe, the knighting wasn’t a legitimate knighting at all. It was just something Bo did to kindly keep him no less than five miles from the center of town.

  That thought was best left pushed aside.

  The easiest way to ignore harsh reality was to simply walk around and daydream. He imagined significant things that were not there. He intently focused on the small things that were. Flowers, for instance, of all shapes, sizes and colors bedazzled the vast expanse of forest surrounding Zephyr. Their petals could be traced in the breeze as they found unique paths. Deep inside the deepest of bulbs lived individual ants with each their own purpose. Raindrops soaked into logs that, over time, split, rotted from the excess moisture. Those splits became caverns for ants and termites. The way the mud smelled just after the rain, how it was just like how it smelled if you dug at dry dirt with a stick. The sheer size of the mountains to the west, or the pink color on the rocky brown cliffs to the east some mornings when the sun rose.

  There were things one could focus on, could do each and every day, to make the time pass. Windston had become good at each, and even fond of most. But despite his new introverted hobbies, his passion was still running and jumping. His second favorite was swinging from branch to branch.

  There were dozens of paths through the thick bushy growth all around Zephyr, and deeper into The Garden. But now there were hundreds. Windston cut paths that began on the ground and ended up in the trees. He walked tunnels through hollowed fallen logs. He found a stairway up the massive spine and skull of some ancient horned creature. Its bones had become petrified rock. He had found more than a dozen waterfalls, and twice as many caves. He had even found tiny stones that looked like colored glass that, once all dug up, were more of boulders. When touched in the right places, they lit with a light from within, rang out in rich tones.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  He had just found a turquoise stone when he heard a shriek like he hadn't heard since the attack on Zephyr. It was at least a mile away, maybe further. Others echoed it.

  Feathered drakuls.

  He scrambled to his feet, leaped to the nearest tree and slung around its trunk. He kicked off with both feet, launched himself skyward above the trees. White flowers scattered in an explosive burst as he shot through a puffy bough on his way down. Its branches buckled beneath his weight. On a thicker branch, he sprung. On a higher limb, he twirled. After another sprint, he flew into the air again.

  Within moments, despite cliffs and hills to climb, leafy sinkholes to avoid, and a generally difficult course to navigate, one straggler at the tail of the pack was not so far ahead.

  It was a big one, nearly ten feet tall and running at a full sprint. He moved ahead and realized they seemed to be chasing after one thing. It must have been airborne; they each, one by one, leapt up into the air, flapping their stubby wings. They soared up and over trees only to glide back down again, empty-beaked. That told Windston one thing: the thing they chased was fast.

  Windston was behind the pack, at least thirty paces back. In leaps, he strained for a better look at what they chased. He heard it before he saw it as a pop, pop, pop!

  Smoke rose and dirt showered him. Over fresh craters he passed, the air was hot and humid. Misting blood settled and feathers blew about, blood blotting and staining nearby trees, which themselves were splintered and smoldering.

  In the commotion, Windston lost the trail. When more pops sounded, this time louder and accompanied by flashes of bright white light, he shifted his chase and picked up his pace. For a while he headed this way, catching glimpses of something soaring overhead. A closer look revealed that it was a winged person gliding over the trees. As he wasn’t quite close enough, he couldn’t be sure; but he thought maybe the person was blue. There was no mistaking the wings. They were sheets of luminous blue energy flaps. Bright but translucent. Attached from just beneath the wrists to the hips, and all along the way.

  Whatever the being was, it sailed as sure of itself as a bird. It dodged limbs and branches, swooped up and dived low, and even twisted backward to lie flat against the wind to hurl down balls of light from the palms of its hands. Windston found himself passing through flaming feathers, sizzling blood, and rising plumes of smoke filled with dirt, splinters and bone shards. This thing, whatever it was, was dangerous, more dangerous than any feathered drakul. It was perhaps more dangerous even than himself.

  Realizing this, Windston clung to a trunk for a moment to think. Several dire scenarios ending with his disfiguring, or worse, played out in his head. But he shook them off; as perimeter knight, he had only one choice. He made up his mind to arrest the monster.

  Being that the creature was surrounded on all sides now, it didn't take long to catch back up. But it wasn't much longer before the thing caught a glimpse of him too. It hadn't been going its fastest – that became apparent rather quickly – and it was in no mood to make friends. As it darted west, Windston found himself dodging bright blasts among the kicks, dives and bites of what was an actual horde of feathered drakuls. One was at least twelve feet tall. Though it couldn’t leap as high as the others, it made up for it by trampling smaller trees lesser drakuls were forced to dodge. It plowed through a sapling oak in a flurry of acorns, beak wide, intent on gobbling Windston’s face. It narrowly missed.

  In the clearing of a small glade he passed through as he chased, Windston saw, as the creature dipped low before swooping back upward, that the creature wasn't a creature at all, but a boy, and not much older than Windston. He was dressed all in white, blue as the sky if not a little darker, and with hair as richly blue as the depths of Zephyr lake.

  He passed directly overhead again in another low swoop. Apparently, the swooping was necessary, as he did it again, and again, and again.

  Windston took note. When the moment arose, he leapt to the top of a tall pine, kicked off its trunk and came crashing down on the blue boy arms and legs splayed.

  They plummeted, Windston squeezing tight with all four limbs, the blue boy flailing in a panic, shooting blast after blast after blast.

  They landed with a rolling, sliding thud on a hard surface of rock beside a brook. The winged boy coughed and gasped and tumbled helplessly while Windston scrambled to his feet, turned and, still sliding backward, attempted to run after him.

  He finally stopped sliding and dashed toward the boy, snatched him back just before a massive drakul would have clamped its beak shut around his head with a deep, wet thud.

  Before he could flee, the same bird ripped open its beak again, the sharp, hooked barbs that ringed it twanging like plucked strings before it snapped its beak shut again, this time a mere inch from the blue boy's foot.

  Windston found himself in a four second dance of dodges from the drakul's frenzied chomps until, without a hint of warning, a massive white ball exploded between himself and the bird.

  He tumbled backward and dropped the boy, half-blind, half-deaf and in a stupor. A steady whistling in his ear drowned out most other noises, though he could hear a few shrieks as dirt spattered from all directions.

  It appeared the birds didn't want anything to do with Windston, but instead wanted desperately to eat the blue boy where he stood. They couldn't get anywhere near him. His face was twisted from the heat of his own blast, and his shirt was singed and dangling; but he rained hellfire on the birds without slowing, laughing maniacally, swearing and spitting, a sweaty, matted madman.

  There were so many. Two from one side, three from the other. One had leaped up to gouge his eyes with its claws. Another bit through its neighbor, pausing only briefly to choke down what was a wing, feathers in its teeth when it returned to frenzy, its neighbor bleeding but raging too.

  He was fast, and his aim was good. Drakuls popped like corn all around him, bursting into bloody feathers and bones and limbs that sizzled as they crashed and burned.

  The number of flashes per second, along with the sickening smell of the dead birds, nearly made Windston throw up; but he kept his composure and, at what seemed the perfect moment, leaped knee-first toward the boy's head.

  He missed, his knee stopping with a thud against the bone of a drakul’s eye socket. There was a crunch as its head caved in, and then they both fell together.

  When he stood, it was just in time to catch a nod from the blue boy as he leaped, flipped, and landed midair in a glide that carried him north in what seemed like the same instant.

  He fully came to his senses and realized everything he thought just happened had. Now he was alone in a burning ring of fire, boiling blood and burnt feathers.

  Detached monster heads still snapped at him, snarling, as he hobbled past. The dust settled and there were no living monsters to be seen, nor were there any nearby flying blue boys. Only butterflies, bees, and a few singing birds flew about in the mess of raining petals and blood.

  His clothes were all but ashes beneath melted ring mail. He stripped the mail, peeling it from his skin at points of impact, and limped off down toward a nearby trail, though not because of any pain; the metal rings had melted together from the skin on his quad to the skin on his calf, limiting his range of motion.

  Being half naked alone in the middle of the woods isn't the absolute worst thing that can happen to someone impervious to bites, stings and pricks. But it is a problem.

  He took the most private route he knew of back home, to his little abode in the trees, and dropped off what was left of his mail. At the nearest brook, which wasn't far, he lay down and rolled to rinse the mud and blood.

  Back home, he dressed in his finest – stained shorts and a T-shirt – fastened his rusty sword to his belt and headed toward Zephyr for the first time in weeks.

  Zephyr wasn't his favorite place to visit anymore. He didn't want to be there any more than anyone wanted him there. But he had to report to Bo; he had to let him know that there was someone nearby that could blow up the whole town and everyone in it in less than a minute.

  He got to the eastern edge of town but stopped before going any further because he'd heard a very distinct whistle. It was Frank's whistle, and Frank had blown it.

  Windston spotted him on the thick end of a pine branch close to the trunk, about halfway up the tree. He was wrapped in a cape of black, white and gray woodpecker feathers and donning his poke of a red hat made only of the red ones. He wasn't alone; he was never alone. Woodpeckers perched everywhere, and he bowed to them as they assembled all about.

  “Windston,” he said with a smile, still bowing.

  “Frank,” Windston said. “Long time no see.”

  “Too long,” Frank agreed. “But I have kept watch over you with the eyes of my friends.”

  “I've noticed,” Windston said.

  “I tried sending for you earlier,” said Frank, meeting Windston's eyes with his own beady black ones and hobbling toward him in a very bird-like fashion. “Mayor Bo says the town has come into a bit of trouble in the form of a thief. Just in time to jeopardize the squat dance.”

  “Really,” Windston said, releasing his grip on the branch and falling onto another more level with Frank's. “I forgot about the squat dance. When is it?”

  “Tonight,” Frank said, his beak-like nose seeming to reach out toward Windston as he stressed the word. “And listen; don't dismiss this thief. He isn't your average pickpocket. My birds have told me he can fly,” he said, grabbing the ends of his cape and flapping it like a bird does wings.

  “Really,” Windston said, stroking his chin, pondering. “What does he look like?”

  “They say he's all black with glowing white eyes. That he sneaks,” Frank said, hopping off his branch and onto Windston's, touching his shoulders from behind him. He hopped over him and skipped toward the trunk in a teetering, tottering balancing act. At the trunk, he turned quickly and knelt like Windston, only he was covered in birds. “That's why they call him the black monster.” He chuckled a melodious chuckle, one not unlike the call of a woodpecker.

  “The black monster,” Windston said, standing, his eyes wide and his fists clinched. “I bet he's one and the same as the blue one I just met,” he said.

  “A blue monster?” Frank asked.

  “Yes!” Windston said, suddenly standing straight, his hands on his hips. “The little jerk that almost blew me up an hour ago!”

  “Someone blew you up?” Frank asked. He had reached into his cape and came back with a pipe. He stuffed its bowl with feathers and lit it with his imagination.

  “Almost,” Windston said. “I don't know if it was meant for me or not, but he shot some magic, and it almost blew me up. I was practically butt naked because he burned my clothes. My armor melted into my skin,” he said, pointing at his butt. “Didn't hurt, though.”

  “Naked,” Frank said, but he didn't seem to be paying much attention anymore. He was, of course, covered in honey. Bees that had found their way onto his arms earlier had become stuck and he was trying to help them free themselves with gentle nudges and shakes.

  “Yes,” Windston said. “Practically. But I'm not anymore. Now I'm just pissed.”

  “Hmm,” Frank said, focused on his pipe again. A few feathers had shot upward but he sucked them back down and was inhaling them into his nose, only they couldn't fit past his nostrils. “Well,” he said, “I don't know anything about that. But I do know that I was sent to fetch you. I was about to try to fly again, only I'm not sure if I'm ready.”

  Windston shrugged. “You'll fly when you're ready.”

  “Yes,” Frank said. “I believe so. But it is not today. Today,” he said, taking another puff off his pipe. “I've come to find a need to warn you about Mayor Bo Beeman.”

  “Oh yeah? What about?”

  “He has been keeping strange company of late. There are strangers in town. A whole camp. One very old man who calls himself a scientist and no less than fifty very peculiar individuals that I suspect are soldiers are with him. They claim they hail all the way from Galsia, if you can believe it. They came here so far, and yet there are no horses, nor are there carriages. It appears as though they walked.”

  Windston nodded, his eyebrows lowered, although he had no idea what or where was Galsia. “That's weird.”

  “It is,” Frank agreed. “I wonder why they're here. For what, or for whom?”

  “Well,” Windston said, “I don't know. Maybe they're here for the squat dance.”

  Frank didn't say anything, he just continued smoking his pipe. Finally, he said, “Everyone likes a good squat dance, I suppose. Although I don't know if it's worth it to travel more than a thousand miles to get to one.”

  “A thousand miles?”

  “More than that,” Frank said. “Much more.”

  “Whoa!”

  Frank nodded. “You've probably traveled little more in your entire life. And yet you run constantly.”

  “I do. And I jump too.”

  Frank nodded. “Those facts, I think, are partially why these men have come. Those facts, and the fact of your sword.”

  Windston’s eyebrows fell flush with the tops of his eyes as he squinted, thinking. “What fact is that?”

  “It is a very special relic, I'm afraid. At least, that's my belief.”

  “What's a relic?” he asked.

  Frank cocked his head, staring at his pipe, as he’d been mid-puff when Windston asked. “I believe your sword must be a historical artifact. And it's possible many people many places might want to have it.”

  “I don't know,” Windston said. “To me...” He paused, sighed. “It's just my sword.”

  “Yes. But it's more of Bo Beeman's now. And even then, it's being claimed by a man from Galsia.”

  “What? Who?!” Windston demanded.

  “But even that is happenstance,” said Frank, “neither here nor there compared to something I really must tell you now.”

  “What?”

  “You know how I'm... different,” Frank said, softer at the word different.

  “What? No. No you're not,” Windston said, but it was clear Frank was very different.

  “Special, even. Some might say so if they're being kind.”

  “Only in good ways.”

  “This thing that I might tell you… I fear maybe I shouldn't tell you. I fear that, if I do, even you might think I've lost it.”

  “Lost what?”

  “Do you believe in the significance of dreams?”

  “Um... yeah,” Windston said, although he didn't know what he meant.

  “Fine. Humor me, if you will.”

  “I will,” Windston said.

  “I have had the same dream for nearly a month. It drives me mad. I awake from it cold. I awake from it sleepy. I awake from it with eyes that are dry despite that I'd been crying.”

  “Oh.”

  “Look,” Frank said, holding his eyelids wide to reveal bloodshot eyes. “Veins,” he said. “Bags,” he said. “I'm not getting any solid rest anymore.”

  “That stinks.”

  “It gets worse. The dreams are about these… things. Horrible, terrifying things.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Worms. Faceless men. And always, always...” He stopped and dropped his head. “A red star.”

  “That's weird. I've never seen a red one.”

  “Whether you're in it fighting demons until they die or being killed by a hooded man with a thumbprint for a face, you're always in my dreams, Windston.”

  “Me?”

  “And at the end, whether I'm relieved or in regret, I look up, and there it is. One. Red. Star.”

  “Weird.”

  “But that's not all. This morning, I was off north further than I usually travel. I was troubled and so I walked. I fell asleep just past midnight, in a tree I haven't slept in for years. It's along a trail north of Rat Road, Old Rat Road. It's an old merchant trail that now only the southern and northern towns use. It's a bit of a shortcut, and a dangerous one at that.”

  “I think I know which one.”

  “I fell asleep and had that dream. A man with a swirl for a face like a thumbprint… he was creeping by, hunched over and small. He was carrying in his arms a worm; it leaked coal black smoke from its mouth, trailed black powdery excrement from its bottom.”

  “That's disgusting.”

  “It was. I was sickened. I vomited, and the man without a face stopped and peered my way. The worm wiggled and tossed, and he steadied it with a muffled command and raise of his hand. He raised his hand toward me, and I lost control of myself. The view panned up, and I stared transfixed at the red star from my nightmares. When I awoke, I was still staring. To my horror, the star was still there. So was the vomit, and so was the trail of vile excrement. I vomited more, and nearly fell to the forest floor.”

  “Wow.”

  “I ran away as quickly as I could. Halfway back, I passed out. My birds filled me in on the rest. It was real. It wasn't a dream.”

  “No way.”

  “Windston, if you ever see this man, kill him!”

  “What? What man? Where?”

  “The man with a swirl for a face. He has been in every dream. In every dream that you do not kill him first, he kills you.”

  “Darn!”

  “Darn is right!” Frank said, panting.

  Windston panted as well. The story had him very worked up, what little of it he understood, anyway.

  When they simmered down, Frank said. “I hope it was just a dream. Maybe I'm going mad. I did sample mushrooms that I maybe should have left alone. Only, I've had them before and they were fine.”

  Windston shrugged. “You love mushrooms.”

  “There is one way to confirm or deny these dreams as true premonitions. Can you do me one last favor?”

  “Last? I can do you a million favors.”

  “Climb up this very tree and look in the sky for me.”

  “This tree? Right now?”

  Frank nodded. “Please. Right now.”

  “No problem,” Windston said. With a leap, he was at the top of the tree, which swayed first this way, and then that.

  At first, he saw nothing. But then, there, between the smallest and the largest of the three moons, was a dot like a star shining brightly despite the time. It was bright red against the pale blue of the sky. It was a red star.

  Immediately, Windston shuttered. He shuttered, and even quaked. He couldn't explain it, not even to himself, but he immediately got the feeling, as he stared at that odd red star, that it noticed him and stared back.

  Slowly, he dropped back down until he was on the branch with King Frank.

  Frank was smoking and his hands were shaky. “You saw it, then,” he asked as a statement, nodding. “Your pale face says it all.”

  Windston nodded. “I did. It's weird.”

  “Then it's probably true. We will never see one another again.”

  “Don't even say that, Frank. We're best friends. Best-best-best friends. Forever.”

  “But you're going away. And I'm staying here.”

  “Says who? I'm not going anywhere, even though I hate it here.”

  “Fate, I think, will make you go.”

  “Who's that?”

  “Either way.... What happens happens. Just promise me this: be careful. And always do what's right.”

  “I will,” Windston said, nodding.

  “Good. That's all I ask.”

  “Good. That's all I do.”

  Frank chuckled. “You really are a good kid. Zephyr is crazy for thinking otherwise.”

  “And you really are a cool guy. They're just super stupid and I hate them.”

  “Goodbye then, Windston.”

  “What, right now?”

  Frank nodded and took a puff off his pipe. He was huddled up on the branch against the trunk. “I've taken up enough of your time. Bo wants to speak with you.”

  “Psh, Bo,” Windston sighed, shaking his head. “Fine, I'll go. For now, Frank. Only for right now.” But it was weird. As he said that to Frank, he averted his gaze. It was as if he felt like he was lying.