"What's three of six?" demanded Nathaniel. "Because that doesn't sound very funny, just more complicated. So… can you take me to the 'dark and funny place' or not? Is that in here too?"

  "Here? Oh no, it's not in here, it's there and over there." Tock pointed in opposite directions. "On the other side…"

  "The side that's not right side up," Tick interrupted.

  "Hmmm... but how do you know that for sure, brother? We're the ones that could be upside down!"

  "Or we're at 45 degrees. Wouldn't that be a mess!"

  Nathaniel shook his head and rolled his eyes. "Can you just show me?"

  "That would be impossible, quite impossible," Tock replied. "We don't know if you think dark is funny, or if you think funny is dark. So you'll have to find that on your own. But come on — follow us to the southern end of the map, where the new addition has been made. We'll convert that for you."

  "Hmmm, okay, sure, why not?"

  They all walked through the woods toward the courtyard, until they came to the outer edge of Nathaniel's tree line. "It's cold over here, Tick, wouldn't you agree?"

  "Colder than normal, yes, and this white stuff that is flying around and lying down. I believe I recognize this from the far Northern Country. AND MY… WHAT'S ALL THIS?"

  "Looks like more of the same!" Tick suggested, as they surveyed all the shredded panthers and birds.

  "More of the same?" Nathaniel asked.

  "Yes, Nathaniel, we saw this same thing not too far north in the western mountains."

  "Yes, that's right, and beyond that in the Northern Country close to the Grove."

  "And that put a wrench in how many pecans we were counting, because we couldn't see how many there were underneath all the dead bodies and torn limbs."

  "Something strange is at work in the Inkworld, brother."

  "Yes, a conversion of the utmost importance — now on to the white stuff."

  "That's called snow," said Nathaniel. "I should know, I drew all this. But what about the creatures and stuff?"

  "We know it's called snow, and we're not worried about snow or the creatures — they can go. You, on the other hand, are why this is taking place. You're the one who added to the map and disrupted the peace we've long come to enjoy."

  Nathaniel shrugged. "Peace and maps? I'm not sure about any map or addition, but I do know I drew this area as my Masterpiece. Hey, wait, there's a map somewhere; like to buried treasure?"

  "Haha!" said Tock. "There is a map but no buried treasure, at least not that we're aware of. Unless it's buried behind the map. But that's just a wall... wait, you don't know about the map? How many times have you been here?" he asked curiously.

  "Today is my second time."

  Tick and Tock looked at each other and said something with their facial expressions, the way his sisters did when they knew something he didn't.

  "Did he just say second?" one asked.

  "Hey, what are you guys thinking?"

  "Oh, nothing... it's just been a while since we've seen anybody new… hey, what's that?"

  "That's the courtyard I drew. We're just in the background now."

  "Oh, dear. Look at all those stone blocks, Tick!"

  "Yes, quite the conversion, Tock."

  They hurried toward the courtyard, giggling all the way, and proceeded to count up all the blocks even while they ran. Then they multiplied them by two, because there were two sides to the wall, and Nathaniel tried to convince them it was the same block on both sides, but they insisted that they had to count the blocks twice, then add the top row because it had snow on the upper ledge, making it different from the others. Then they had to multiply everything by two again because of the Iron Gate, and then three times because there were three people standing by, and finally Nathaniel lost track and stood by in bewilderment at the completely meaningless mathematics they were doing.

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  Tick and Tock argued back and forth for what seemed like an endless time, and Nathaniel became bored out of his mind listening to them and their clockematics. "Hey!" he said loudly. "Have you guys ever heard of revegination?"

  "Did he say regurgitation?"

  "No, that can't be right, I thought I heard rejuvenation."

  "No, I said revegination."

  "Revolution?"

  "No, remediation."

  "Meditation?"

  "Or perhaps intimidation."

  "Oh! You mean initiation."

  "Nah, what I meant to say was interrogation."

  "Interruption?"

  "How about corruption?"

  "Better yet calculation…"

  "Conversation?"

  "No, no… conversion."

  "Ah yes! My kind of language, Tock."

  "Let's see about converting some of that snow."

  "Snow will be hard to convert because of its crystalline nature, and the fact that it always falls here, which would lead me to conclude it might be an endless conversion."

  "Want to try it anyway?"

  "Hmm. It would be a clockematical nightmare if you weren't a Clockmatician, but I think if we can isolate how much snow is falling per second and multiply it by how long we stand counting it, then we should have an exact amount of snow falling in every square inch and if we multiply that by..."

  They walked away as they said all this, gesturing wildly, leaving Nathaniel standing alone next to the Iron Gate shaking his head, wondering how in the world they were going to convert individual snowflakes to seconds. Another thirty seconds of that gibberish, and he was going to lose his mind. After their play on his word 'revegination,' he was more than willing to let them go on ahead by themselves. He could always catch up later... assuming he wanted to. He figured it would probably take them a while to convert snow into seconds. Maybe I'll give them a real wrench on my next visit, he thought. That'll fix their wagon.

  Nathaniel walked back through his courtyard and climbed in through the window.

  Sighing, he turned around and popped his head through once more, then put his Masterpiece face-down on a towel underneath his bed. When he looked at the clock and realized that only about a half an hour had gone by, he knew something definitely wasn't quite right. "I was in there for at least two or three hours," he growled.

  Nathaniel changed his clothes and went riding around the neighborhood on his bike, with the cool New England air in his face, forgetting altogether that it was a school day — the last day before Thanksgiving break.

  Islington Station was nestled in the woods at the bottom of a street he lived near. This wasn't a gradual hill, either; it was a bike-shaking, teeth-clenching hill, where fear and joy met at the same time, causing his heart to pound with pure excitement every time he sped down it. At the bottom of the hill stretched a little walking path no wider than two or three feet that circled up and around into a dark thicket nearby, and then ran parallel to the tracks about fifty yards away. The station sat in a perpetually sunny little clearing. It wasn't much — just a little three-sided clear box with one long metal bench inside. A couple of paper cups blew in the wind, swirling around the station. The breeze occasionally flipped the pages of a left-behind newspaper, as if the station was reading the news with great patience, waiting for a traveler to come and sit in its lap.

  Nathaniel never ventured close enough to see it in detail, probably because it looked a little haunted... but more likely because of his mother's no-nonsense warning several years back. "Don't you go near those tracks, young man. Train tracks are not meant to be played on." Over time, he became familiar with the loud screeching noise that pealed through the woods every time a train pulled into the station, and that was a clear reminder not to get too close. The sound of those brakes — a mix of metal-on-metal grind and an intense, high-pitched squeal — was enough to send all the dogs in the area barking frantically. The sound pulsated deep into his chest and stomach on the rare occasions when he ventured into the clearing, where the sound wasn't muffled by all the maple trees, as the train was arriving.

  Islington Station was the anchor that held the neighborhood and Nathaniel's childhood experiences together. He knew what time the screeching would come, just as he knew by the vibrations in the ground when a train was going to pass through without stopping; and whether it was snowing, raining, or sunny, that station sat there patiently, almost like a person with its arms folded, waiting for a train to stop. But now, with the discovery of Inkworld, it seemed like someone had come along and yanked the anchor up, throwing every familiar thing out of whack, having decided to set sail for the horizon with or without him. At one point, he stopped riding around and watched the station from across the railroad, waiting for it to tell him, "Go on back to Inkworld, kid. I'll be here when you get back."

  Those words never came from Islington Station, but he felt he should definitely go back, at least for a little while.

  His old fortress and imaginary kingdom faded away as he thought about Inkworld; as real as they had seemed in his imagination, he'd always known that they existed only in his imagination. The old soda factory, the woodland outpost, the attic, and the dungeon seemed so small in comparison with the vastness of Inkworld, in which imagination truly came to life; and, given the dead birds and panthers, could apparently die as well. So far he'd only hiked to the clearing in the woods, a matter of a few miles at most. How much more exploring could he do? How far did Inkworld go?

  He decided to find out. He rode his bike home, pulled out his Masterpiece, and climbed in just as he had before, with a full backpack — and this time, a big wrench from his father's workshop in the basement.