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— Were are we Anu? , the mother asked her young daughter trotting in front of her. My, it’s awfully dark in there… Are you sure we’ll find the others here?
— Yes Mum. Anu answered in a soft voice.
— Don’t be so anxious, Lily dear; trust our little girl; after all, she did so bravely well on her own after that plane crash.
— You’re right Aaron, but this place is so… I don’t know, it gives me the creeps. It’s like… I couldn’t tell why, but it’s like we’re not remotely close to the Miami… or even the Sarcastic Sea where we’re supposed to be stranded…
— It’s because we’re not, muttered Anita, more to herself than to her mother. But we’ll be soon enough, she added.
— Sometimes I wonder how can Anu know so well were we are when we’re so lost, her mother mumbled…

Balbina was following the little group as it was heading to the cave where one of the portal’s entrances was located. She could see the entrance clearly, glowing and sending ripples of energy coils, but that was only because she was travelling in her dream-body. While Anita, who was quite tuned into those things, wasn’t appearing to be lost, the parents seemed more than a little in the dark, and not only figuratively speaking…

Balbina turned to the rabbit who was keeping her company.
— And do you know were they’re going to?
— And do you like the things that life is showing you? giggled Yuki. Well, more seriously, it depends on what they’re choosing. And it could lead them to a place much more different than the one they expect to go to.

A funny idea crossed the mind of Balbina, so much so that the elderly lady, who was looking rather youngish in her dreamlike appearance couldn’t help but express it.

— Could they come to my place? They seem so charming people, and they seem to come from the same time as I do…
— I thought you would never ask, Yuki smiled at her mischievously.
— Oh, why?
— Don’t you think it’s a funny coincidence that you are to meet them here and now?
— Well… It’s just a dream, isn’t it?
— And what if you could make that dream reality? Prove to yourself that it’s as real as anything else…
— That sounds exciting indeed.

“Here!” Anita was pointing a strange shaped bush of brambles.

Rafaela was standing next to the bushes with Armelle on a tree nearby. “I’ve thought it would be more practical for them than the rock pool”
“Good thinking dear” Yuki answered the goat.

— And now? Balbina asked
— I think it’s up to you and Anita, said Yuki.

“And where are we going from there?” asked Lily to her daughter.
“Not far from here, to a friend’s home, in Venezuela .” answered Anita with a wink which seemed lost to her parents, but not to the beaming Balbina.

Just behind the plumpy panting woman who was coming to the campfire, Balbina could see the most interesting waddling goat she had ever seen coming along.

“And I suspect the goat talks too?” Balbina asked Yuki.
“Oh, yes… lots even… But don’t expect to understand all she says” Yuki added with a bwink.

Hahaha, Balbina was amazed. That place was the most delirious dream/out-of-body projection she’d had in a long long time. How entertaining.

“Beh, don’t be fooled, Balbina dear, it’s all real. And you’ll know very soon.” the goat started to greet her.
“And you are?”
“Rafaela, at your service.”
“How many more like you are there here? I’ve never seen such a funny zoo…”
“A great deal actually” answered Yuki “but not so many of them are focused in this form. You still have to meet our dear Armowlle, who is doing some spying business and occasional rescue missions on the island, and our soft Arailynx who is on more subjective missions currently…”

Balbina was wondering “and why did you say I’ll know very soon?” she asked the goat.
Rafaela answered with a mysterious smile “Because I’m planning to communicate a way out of this island to two of my little protégés, and I expect some of these people will follow. And you are very likely to meet them in the flesh when they get there.”
“Really?!” Balbina was amazed. This dream was taking qualities of realness she wouldn’t have suspected the least it to have.

“Now,” Yuki cut short the amazement moment “we need to have those among our friends willing to leave, to be prepared to leave at dawn.”

“Okay” Anita, who had been seated on the sand quietly till then, rocking gently from side to side in a calm meditation, said softly.

“Oh, she really can feel us talking…” Balbina said more to herself than to anyone else. And looking closely at the girl’s energy field, she could see how expanded it was, reaching those of Yuki, Kay the spirit dog, and Rafaela and even hers in luminous threads.

“Not all of them are leaving tonight” answered Yuki to her unspoken question. “I think Anita and her parents will, but it’s more than probable than the others will stay. Some have business to do here, and others are in vacations huhu…”

“You’re right, seems like the one with the strange energy field is gone already?”
“Oh Claude, you mean. Yes. His mummification experience wasn’t too pleasant, and he has unfinished business with the people of the island; no wonder he prefers to stay here on his own.”

(on the beach, around the campfire, in Regional Area 1, or physical reality)

— Awww, plane-crash you say? ‘ow wonderful… Mavis was chatting with Akita. Ye need to come with me, ye can’t stay ‘ere all night. Besides, Shar and Glaw will be so thrilled to see you. And we were starting to think it was all boring ‘ere; didn’t know they would have real survivors like on real-TV!

— Aaron and his family … they would probably need some better shelter, I assume. This probably would be best for us to come with you… Akita answered. And apparently, Claude has left, so that’s just us…

— Owlright then! Mavis beamed, come with me handsome! she said, clutching the soldier’s muscular arm under hers.
— Don’t worry Akita, we’ll follow you, said Anita to the soldier who was visibly appealed by the woman but was also weary to leave Anita alone with her sleeping parents. Besides, we can see the lights behind the trees, it’s very near…

— See you there Anita! Akita said to Anu
— Bye Akita! And don’t worry, Kay is always with you she said with a mysterious smile.

As they walked side by side to the facility, Mavis said “Kay? A friend of yours?”
“Oh, my lost dog… Nothing to worry about” answered Akita absently.

A Pacific island then… she thought

Let’s move there…
She could feel her ghost body hover, like a feather sucked into a whirlwind.
She had to be confident she’ll snap back right at her lying body when she’ll be over with the trip.
Trust that everything will be okay. As it always were. Will always be.

She could see the Earth from above… The Pacific Ocean, its huge vastness, delimited by coasts of lights.

Oh, of course, she had not thought of that, but it was night there. She could see towns, concentrations of which were twinkling like shiny stars on a dark sky; but she didn’t want towns. Far too crowded, lots of energies that were maybe intoxicating at first, but she could feel she would be worn out in a second.
For, as she traveled in spirit, she had access to so much more information than people usually get with their physical senses alone,… it was hard to explain.

There… in that dark patch, when she moves closer, she can feel the immensity of the ocean surrounding everywhere. She moves closer to that long island that must be New Zealand, because she doesn’t want to be far from any sort of indication of her location. Keeping an eye on this, she spots something which isn’t a city light. It’s dancing, like a fire.
How can she spot a fire at that distance is beyond her understanding, but she has learned not to question, and act upon her impulses.

She wills herself at the fire.

Waves, the peaceful sound of the waves.

Around the fire, she can see a dog, crouched near a thoughtful man; there’s a young girl too, with a little white rabbit in her lap. The girl’s parents are resting in a hug, and a man with a strange energy configuration, the like of which she hasn’t seen, is closing the circle.

What a bunch of interesting people…

She was squatting on the sand beach, near the now calm ocean. The light was so dim that she barely could see the devastation, shards of coconut and palm trees spread on the shore, but the sound of the ocean was soothing.

Aaah she had hold that pee for too long.

“MAaaAVIS!” That suave authoritative voice must have been Sha’s.
“COooOMING!” Tsk. One can’t have a pee alone…

While she was readjusting her two pieces bath suit, ready to come back to the improvised discotheque, her attention was caught by something on the beach. A fire?
She squinted her little beady eyes to discard any of the hallucinatory visions that sometimes she had.

“MA-VIS!”
“BLODDY COMIN’!” a hint of exasperation. “Mrs Sharon Stone, you ain’t the queen here” she thought. “I can go look for adventure meself, if I want to”.
Besides, the fire didn’t seem to be too far away.

With the darkness that made very difficult their progress, Akita had made them stop near the shore, where they would see any trouble coming and had ordered the small troop to collect twigs and bits of wood to light a fire.
The parents were still in a bit of a shock, and were staying with a blank gaze, looking with an air of wildness at the soothing sound of the waves. Anita was playing nearby, drawing things in the sand, muttering words to herself.
That was a good thing that Claude was there. Unlike the others, he seemed quite strong, and the adventure didn’t seem to have left him short of resources.
He had been on the island before, and had said they had to avoid the constructions, which were all owned by the same people.
For all that mattered, Akita wanted to get to the authorities as soon as possible, but he had to compromise: they would settle close enough to have a check around and see if it would be safe to go there.

In a minute, Claude had been roaming through the woods and had gathered a pile of wood. That guy was pretty amazing, Akita was thinking. Odd that he had retained his supernatural strength… At least, Akita had imagined that the guy’s strength was the result of the spider exposure, but now he started to doubt it. He had been sketchy to say the least around the circumstances of his presence.
As far as he himself was concerned, Akita wished he had retained somewhere his connection to Kay, wherever his spirit dog was. What the creature had said? That veils were thicker, but not impermeable… Or something around that.

I think they’re still hanging around

What? What did you say? But Anita didn’t answer. Perhaps his tired mind was imagining things.

With all that rain soaked wood, it would be difficult to get anything but smoke.

I’ve got a lighter Claude handed him an expensive ziraf that flashed moon reflection in his eyes.

Let’s get started then.

What now?

A roaring sound of a flying thing startled Mavis, passing over her head.

Mmm… this island’s getting too crowded, me think. Must be another of Vessie’s guests… That gal sure’s got how to use her sex-apple.”

California, 1849

Almost five months… Five whole months they’d been traveling all around the place at a very slow pace.
Twilight was enjoying every instant of being in the middle of that strange moving cohort.

She had been inspired to write daily. Not much at the beginning, but it was all “in the dedication and intent that marvel would shine through”, as Felix, the Otter man had been saying to her.

In truth, she wasn’t really expecting marvels, but marvels had come to her more than once.
At times, she even felt compelled to write about it to Jo and Elroy, her dear brothers. Of course, she’d been writing with a clockwork regularity, posting sometimes more than a few letters at each of their settling near a new town, all the way from Texas, to Colorado, Utah, Nevada and finally California. She wasn’t even sure the actual letters were reaching them, but she more than once felt like her thoughts had reached them throughout the distance, and her dreams would confirm her into these intuitions.
That trip was hard, harder than she would have guessed, with all the heat, dust and chaotic dirt trails, but the company and fellowship was always uplifting, and a joy of each instant.
Even the war between America and Mexico that made travel even more perilous was over after two years, and things all around seemed to settle down more peacefully as if to reflect that truce.

And now, looking at all of what she had gathered, she was amazed at these marvels she had collected, those nuggets of their lives, each moment seemingly so fleeting and trite, and yet, as they were put together, all marvelously interwoven.
Though she mostly loved passionate real-life stories, she had to admit she had a soft spot (or let it be said, an un-common spot) for one of her most delirious story.
She had been inspired to write something about giant ants after she’d been amazed at seeing huge ant hills during their trip in the deserts. There was this mad quack who was trying to extract some sort of honey from giant ants to make a powerful drug, and and she had added lots of her friends from the show inside this story. Herself was a delightful jet-black haired beauty with an impossible name and diverse and frustrated love interests, spying on the mad quack… She even started to dream about that story at times…

She loved that gentle slipping into abundant nutness…

Now that they were arrived in San Francisco, she was considering settling there for a while, sharing her time between writing and dancing. Time would tell.

Funny, thought Yurick.
A little bit earlier he had been distracted out of a sentence by an eerie outline of New Zealand islands on the front of a shop in a nearby street, which had reminded him of their friend Finn.

But now his attention was unexpectedly caught as he was passing by the bank’s corporate logo in the other side of the street.
That creature looks oddly familiar …

The confusion that Claude had made on the spiders ranks had been all that Phurt had waited for.
In her agitation she hadn’t felt the signals that the Mother had been hurt during the fight.

The only thing that obsessed Phurt now was that a way was now clear for the giant spider to go nearer the “wortex”. She could feel it, it was coming from the elder tree, the roots of which went spreading miles and miles away.
Perhaps she could subjugate that raw power, consume it wholly and become one with it.

But, as she went closer and closer, she started to feel as if she wasn’t the one eating or absorbing it, but the reverse was true. She started to struggle as she felt sucked into the wortex, crying as she felt doomed to oblivion, as old Narani had been telling them. How stupid had she been, she should have heard her. And as the Mother was now dying instead of becoming the new Mother, she was now about to die with her.
But now was too late for laments. She had to embrace her destiny, and if it meant to die, she would, with pride.

They all had felt it simultaneously. Armelle and the Snoot on the borgulm tree, Yuki and Rafaela, waiting with Anita near the perimeter made by the spiders, and Akayli the werelynx, carrying the mummified parents.

— What’s happening Claude asked to the owl

— One of the giant spiders went through the hole, and we’ll have to follow her said Yuki to Anita.

— The good thing is that the turmoil will keep the wortex opened a little longer Akayli thought to himselves.

Armelle, go open the way now the Snoot whispered to the owl, then poofed away in a gurgling liquid sound.

— They won’t stop those nasty buggers! Tearing apart all our beauty machines! Awww, poor Vessie will be devastated! Gloria said sadly, coming dangerously close to the spot
— Watch’out Glo! Sharon cried as a menacing magpie came cawing at her while the others were ripping the machine apart in gruesome metallic sounds.
— Bugger! Bugger! cried Gloria Won’t bloddy poke me eyes! She started to wave her arms and kick out in erratic movements to brush out the bouncing and flying bird.

— STAY CLEAR! the voice of Sha thundered a few moments after, and before Gloria could notice anything, a big thud with a crunching sound went zooming past her.
— Bloddy brilliant Sha! Gloria said, spreading the fatty fingers of her hands off her face to look at the magpie crunched under a coconut. Not so proud now, bloddy bugger! she sniggered at the bird.

She almost giggled as she looked up on her friend. In a second, she understood how the coconut had been thrown. Ye’re bloody genius Sha! Wouldn’t have thought of using me bra as a sling! she beamed at her nearly naked friend wearing all but wrinkles and padding.

— Oh the buggers, won’t get away with it! an all bucked up Gloria said, stripping her bra off her opulent breasts.
— Dammit, they got something! T’s‘all shiny like a crystal ball! Must be a U.V. lamp or something
— They won’t get away with it! We’ll knock ‘em out one by one those nasty buggers; any more coconuts by yourself sweetie?
— Got aye few pomegranates here
— Go fer it!

The portal has opened, we must hurry said Araili

Araili had felt something more, that he didn’t want to share yet with Akita and his spirit dog Kay. He had felt that something, or someone was trying to make its way from the wortex. However, the whole area was tightly held in a sort of quarantine by the giant spiders. Their genetic ancestral memory was aware of previous huge bleedthroughs like this one, and they had what humans would call “prophecies” amongst their kin, of such occurrences being heralds of tremendous upheavals.
Araili, who was extending far beyond this guise of a lynx that he had taken now, smiled when he thought of how some of his earthly medieval focuses would have been similarly frightened by natural events like eclipses.

It did not take long to them to find Anita’s parents. They were right at the spot that the big arachnid had just left, wrapped in silky spider bandages with little skin left to breathe.

— They seem alive. checked Akita. Heavily sedated, but alive… Now, we’ll have to get them out of here quick.
— I think I have an idea smiled Araili.

Claude had finally came out of what he thought was just a strange tree, but then, his preternatural senses where telling him something was wrong. This place looked different. No, this place felt different.
And smelt different too.

There were soft sounds, crawlings he could hear, very near his place. They were coming from him, but he would fight.
He jumped on a tree, and in a few vigorous movements, was perched on top of it.
He almost gapped when he saw the black circle of huge spiderly creatures around his tree.

They were staying at a distance from the wortex. But for how long… He couldn’t wait for his death.

From the top of the tree, Claude jumped unscathed. Taking a look around, he found exactly what he needed.
Breaking a few sharp bamboos poles, he started his move to the black circle in a prodigious and accelerated run.

From atop a nearby tree, Armelle was considering the whole scene. The wortex would probably last a few hours, perhaps a bit more. Anita, Rafaela and Yuki were about to be here soon, she had warned them of the spider circle, so that they would hide until she has found them a way to get through.

She had not expected someone to come out of it. That may be her way…

Phurt was coming closer and closer now. She could feel the surge of power, and the trepidation raising all the hair on her legs. She couldn’t possibly confront all of the sisters. Not yet.
She had to find a way to get past.

As if Arachneiax, Goddess of her kind had heard and answered her plea, a dying cry, confusion, and call for help came to her senses from a border of their circle. A perfect diversion…