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  Chapter Eleven

  “pany…halt!”

  Aesop stopped walking so suddenly that I crashed into him from behind. We were a couple miles outside of town, in the shadow of a tall, monolithic hill that pletely obscured the dark e sun.

  “What now?” Ethan pined.

  “What no echoed, raising his eyebrows. He thrust a menag fi the distant hill. “What now is that we’re here!”

  Everybody exged a look. We could still hear the sirens ing from town. After almost being tomatonated back there, I wouldn’t have bmed anyone if they’d just wao go home. Especially Jade. The pirl hadn’t said a word since we’d left the restaurant, and I’d had to keep my arm hooked around hers for fear that she’d wander off and do somethitable.

  It wouldn’t have been the first time.

  Aesop broke into a sprint across the meadow, his bright red hair a bea in the permawilight. Ethan looked at me, and I gave him a smile I didn’t quite feel.

  “Race you there?” I asked.

  “Hell no,” he spat, making his way across at a more reasonable speed. I followed close behind, Jade not resisting as I led her away from the road.

  We caught up to Aesop at the base of the hill, where he was busy tugging on different parts of a link fehan’s eyes immediately went to the big bd red Private Property sign that hung from it.

  “Are we going to get in trouble for this?” he asked nervously.

  I waved dismissively. “Nah! If we’re caught, I’ll just show them my Hunter badge ahem I’m iigating something.”

  “What about the rest of us?”

  “You’re my cheerleaders. You three dand sing about how awesome I am while I fight the maiams.”

  A moment ter, Aesop ughed when he found the loose se of fehan gave me another look, but ducked through the gap without argument. Once we were all through, Aesop turned and ran the rest of the the hill as fast as his stubby little legs could carry him, grinning like a madman.

  “Ethan Griggs,” the young lepre decred, sweeping his arm dramatically in front of himself, “wele to Feverdream Field!”

  We reached the top, and all four of us stood side by side to look at our destination. Feverdream Field was a lot less impressive than the name made it sound. It stretched for miles in every dire, but all there was to see were hundreds — thousands — of dark purple clumps. A thin violet fog hung over the field.

  “Great,” said Ethan. “Now will someone finally tell me what that is?”

  “Just the one and only natural habitat for the somnus mushroom,” I answered, finally letting go of Jade. She wandered off to sit under a tree. “Super rare, super valuable. You make an awesome pasta sauce out of it.”

  “Oh.” Ethan took a closer look. “I guess that doesn’t sound so bad.”

  “And they spray a halluogenic toxihreatened.”

  Ethan gave me a sharp look. “What was that st part?”

  “The said nothing!” Aesop snapped. He pulled a baseball out of his pocket and threw it to me. “Henry, tell him what he’s got to do!”

  “With pleasure!” I grinned and bouhe ball a few times in my hand. Then, throwing it up high, I drew Sptsy to her full size and swung her as hard as I could. With a loud thwack, the ball went s out over Feverdream Field, nding somewhere in the ter with a series of mae gun-like pops from the mushrooms.

  “Your job,” I said, “is to go get that ball.”

  Ethan took a step back. “Uh, yeah, no. I don’t think so.”

  “Aw, what’s the matter?” Aesop elbowed him in the ribs. “You scared?”

  “Scared of a bunch of transdimensional mushrooms that I’m pretty sure Henry just said were poisonous?” He nodded forcefully. “Yes, yes I am.”

  I grabbed him by the shoulder and gave him a little shake. “e on, Griggs! Remember what the cil said about me keeping you safe no matter what? Do you really think I’d send you down there if it was dangerous?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, e on!” I begged. “Have a little faith.”

  Ethan looked at me, then sighed. “You swear it isn’t dangerous?”

  “Pinky promise,” I said, holding out my little finger.

  “Just a wee harmless bit o’ fun, ddie buck!”

  Ethan ignored my pinky and started down the hill. “Okay, fine. I’ll go get your stupid ball.”

  Aesop and I both snickered as Ethan walked down the hill aively stepped onto the field. The mushrooms gave him the famous Feverdream Field wele, immediately spewing a cloud of toxic fumes right into his face. Ethan coughed, and then stopped in his tracks.

  “And so it begins!” Aesop cackled.

  “Wh- What the?” I could just make out Ethan’s voice. He looked around, staring wide eyed at something only he could see. “Is that a…whaaat?”

  “I wonder what he’s seeing?” I whispered, a grin spreading ay face.

  “Nothing nice,” Aesop answered. “They don’t call it Feverdream Field for nothing.”

  Ethan reached out toward whatever was in front of him, and then recoiled with a yelp. Aesop and I burst out ughing.

  “Uh, guys?” Ethan called. “This isn’t funny anymore. I want out!”

  “You’ve got to get the ball!” Aesop yelled back.

  “Hurry up,” I added. “The sooner you get dohe sooner we leave!”

  I have no idea if he heard us, but he obediently wandered farther into the field. With every step, another cloud of purple gas was unched into the air, taking him a little deeper into dreamnd. He paused every few feet to go around invisible walls, occasionally asking imaginary friends for dires. The whole time, he kept gng nervously around, like he thought something was following him.

  “Look out for pink elephants!” Aesop yelled, sendio another fit of giggles.

  It wasn’t until Ethan started to cross what I assumed was an invisible tightrope, his arms held out straight on both sides, that I thought to che Jade. She still sat where we’d left her, arms ed around her knees.

  “Hey,” I said, sitting dowo her and putting a hand on her arm. “Are you okay?”

  A tear ran down her face, and she closed her eyes.

  My heart sank into my stomach. “You know that wasn’t your fault, right?”

  “I could have killed us,” she said. “And everyone else there!”

  “Oh, Jade,” I whispered as she broke into pitiful sobs. “I’m so sorry.”

  Moving like she was in a trance, she reached into her sweatshirt and pulled out her neckce. A small jade bead, a little bit bigger than a marble, da the end of a thick bck cord.

  “I hate myself,” she hissed through her teeth.

  “Whoa, whoa!” I excimed, grabbing her by the shoulders and turnio face me. “You cut that out! You are freakin’ awesome, Jade Xiwang, and you know it!”

  “But…”

  “You have to stop w about things you ’t do anything about!”

  “How am I supposed to do that, Henry?” she snapped. “Do you have any idea what it’s like? W that somebody might say…the bad words…at any moment and you might end up killing someohat’s there’s absolutely nothing you do to stop it? That’s not the kind of thing you just stop w about!”

  I looked away, cheeks turning blue with embarrassment. She was right, of course, and I was just making things worse by pretending to uand what she was going through. You’d think, having a…problem…like mihat I’d uand how that worked by now. We didn’t say anything for a few minutes, and the only sound came from Aesop’s ughter as Ethan wahrough the field below.

  “Don’t tell Ethan what I am,” Jade finally whispered.

  I looked up at her in surprise. “Why not?”

  “I don’t want him to try and use me.”

  I snorted. “Etha have the guts to—”

  “Everybody wants to use me!” she cut me off, a dangerous edge in her voice.

  “Everybody?” I asked, leaning in closer to her.

  She looked at me, then sighed. “Fine. Everybody but you and Aesop.”

  “You know that keeping him in the dark is going to make things harder,” I noted. “If he doesn’t know, how are we going to expin why he ’t say…”

  Her head so look at me, and I shied back.

  “…the, uh, bad words around you?”

  Jade rested her forehead on her knees, staring down at the grass. “I don’t know. But promise me anyway, okay, Henry? He’s a little grumpy, but at least he treats me like a normal person. Even you and Aesop don’t do that.”

  I opened my mouth to tell her that wasn’t true, but stopped myself. Aesop and I both loved Jade more than she probably loved herself. She was our friend. But knowing what we did about her, how could a treat her a little differently, even if we didn’t mean to?

  I looked out into the field for a sed, and then blinked in surprise and rose to my feet.

  “I don’t want that to ge.” Jade asked. “And if he finds out what I am, you promise me that it won’t?”

  I wasn’t listening anymore, though.

  “Uh, Aesop?” I asked. “Where’s Ethan?”

  “What do you mean?” the lepre asked, pointing. “He went into that cloud of fog a couple minutes ago.”

  “Okay, but where is he now? Did he ever e out?” Panic started to rise up in me. Already, visions of him being sucked dry by a maiam were fshing before my eyes.

  Aesop shrugged. “Not that I—”

  Suddenly, Ethan’s voice rang out from somewhere down below.

  “HEEEEELLLLLP!”