Page 25 of Mislaid in Parts Half-Known

“Sometimes the Doors get it right when they go fishing for children,” said Antsy. “We didn’t come to take you away.”

Stephanie relaxed, looking pleased and—obscurely—just a bit disappointed, like she’d been expecting something else. “Oh. Why did you come? I know you didn’t find a door. Emily would be miserable in a world that hasn’t invented Halloween yet, and Cora would hate the ocean here. It’s full of giant lizards made of teeth, and they’renotas smart or friendly as my family.”

“What about me?” asked Sumi.

“Refined sugar doesn’t exist.”

Sumi’s eyes went wide. “This is hell. We’ve discovered an Underworld for certain, because this is hell, and everything that happens here is designed for torture and for torment.”

“We came,” said Antsy, forcibly ignoring Sumi’s theatrics, “because we’re looking for a magpie who was shoved into a birdcage against his will. A black-and-white bird, named Hudson. He’s very talkative, and I’m sure you’d remember him if you’d seen him.”

Several of Stephanie’s dinosaur relations stepped forward, lips drawing back from their teeth as they began snarling. The feathers atop their heads rose in what was clearly a threat display. Any question of whether feathers would make dinosaurslessterrifying was promptly answered. No. No, these literal living dinosaurs with their literal mouths full of sharp, pointy teeth were not any less terrifying just because theywere also brightly colored and a little fluffy. If anything, the contrast made it worse.

As for Stephanie, she tensed, stance shifting to something defensive. “Hudson? What do you want with Hudson?”

“Please,” said Antsy. “He deserves to go home, and he can’t open Doors on his own.”

“Says the girl who stuffed him into a cage and threw him into the bushes in a world full of predators! If Two-Chirps hadn’t found him, he’d have been eaten.”

“Ididn’t do that!” protested Antsy. “Vineta did. Yulia said Vineta called him a liar who lies, and that means he was trying to tell her what the Doors charge for using them, and Vineta didn’t want her to listen. He was probably also trying to tell Vineta to stay away from the Doors before she ran out of time completely, andshedidn’t want to listen tothat. So she got rid of him. But now I’m back, and I’m not leaving the Store again, and I need his help so I can get rid ofher.”

Something rustled overhead, and then a voice asked, “Truly?”

Antsy exhaled, shoulders sagging. “Truly,” she repeated. “Hello, Hudson.”

With a flurry of wings, a large black-and-white bird dropped down from the branches and landed on the ground at Stephanie’s feet. Unlike the dinosaurs, who wore neither clothes nor ornamentation, the bird was wearing a tiny pair of wireframed spectacles, shaped to rest on his beak and hooked behind his head to make up for his lack of ears.

“Hello, Antoinette,” he replied. “I didn’t think I’d see you again.”

Antsy laughed, covering her mouth with her hand. “Last time we were together, I yelled at you and stormed away.”

“I needed yelling at.” He fluffed his feathers. “We made a promise to Elodina. We promised to tell the new clerks what the Doors cost. But it was so much easier to run the Store when we had full use of them, and most featherless people have such long, long lives; Vineta saidshedidn’t know, andshedidn’t get upset when she found out, so why should anyone else? And she said if I didn’t stop telling lies and asking her to stay away from the Doors, she’d get rid of me.” Hudson’s wings drooped, his head dipping low in sadness and shame. “I thought we were friends. I thought we both wanted what was best for the Store.”

“I don’t think she’s wanted what’s best for the Store for a long time,” said Antsy. “I’m going to replace her.”

Hudson cocked his head. “You’re sure? Because you weren’t, or the Store wouldn’t have made you leave.”

“The Store sent me another promissory Door,” said Antsy. “That means I was sure enough to call it back to me. Maybe someday, when it’s been long enough and I’m all the way an adult therightway, I’ll open a door back to my mother, when she can believe I’m really me. Until then, I can resist the Doors, and I don’t mind letting other people open them if they understand what it’s going to cost. We can ask customers to open a Door for us if we tell them it’ll cost them three days off their lives, and we can keep taking care of the lost things, and actually be asafeplace for the children who find us, instead of a trap that pretends it’s a safe place all for the sake of doing them more harm.”

“Do you understand any of this?” Stephanie asked, looking to Emily.

Emily smiled. “Some of it. I understand that Antsy’s going home, and not coming back to school with us.”

“School?” Stephanie took a step back, toward the safety ofher watchful, vigilant dinosaur family. “Did you go back to Whitethorn?”

“No, no, to the other school, the one Sumi told me about.” Emily sighed, still smiling. “They let me make scarecrows for the garden out back, and sometimes I go out there to dance at night. It’s beautiful.”

“She’s a wonderful dancer,” said Cora. “Hardly ever steps on a single snail.”

“Snails have a right to exist as much as we do,” said Emily.

“And the crunch feels weird between your toes,” said Sumi. “Hi, Stephanie. Wanna go into the bushes and get nasty?”

“Thanks, but we’ve been out in the open long enough; it’s not safe to stay here.”

As if Stephanie had summoned danger by speaking, something deeper in the jungle roared. It was a bone-shaking, primal sound, one that instantly reminded all of them that they were soft and squishy creatures, capable of being killed.

“We should be somewhere else,” said Stephanie.

---