The differences between Durian and Avocado became apparent the moment we set foot in that forest. For starters, the foliage was green and the water was an odd bluegreen, the opposite of my homeland. It was otherworldly, though I should have expected this upon meeting Hammy. The other creatures we met in that forest were amazing in their own ways, too; there were small creatures Sage called puraflies, which gave off a faint, blue and white glow that was brighter than the moon, lighting the forest as if it were daylight; there were loud creatures on the surface of the river we followed, whose constant noise was oddly comforting; there was a large beast we saw across the river, its body reminiscent of a deer, which Sage called a behemoth. It wasn’t so big, but Sage insisted it would grow in time, and though the name made it seem scary, there was a peace I felt when I saw it drinking river water.

Sage was being so talkative that it became infectious, maybe because I was so tired, maybe because he was just nice and I didn’t want to admit it to myself; in any case, I asked him questions. “So what is this Arsene like? He going to help us out, or just help you?”

Sage shrugged, “No clue. But whenever I haven’t got a clue, I find things work out best when I consult Arsene.”

“Is he a fortune teller or something?” I asked haughtily. My tone was either unapparent to Sage or he simply didn’t care.

“Sort of, though not in a traditional sense. He’s never actually explained how he does it, but whenever I have shown up he’s always expected it and no matter what I ask him he knows the answer, though the way he explains it is usually a bit too obtuse for my taste. Why one time I asked him where I had placed my favorite cloak, this one I had made for myself long ago, a gorgeous deep purple lined in warm wool that made cold nights in the castle bearable, and do you know what he said to me when I asked him where it might be?”

When I didn’t respond, he turned to me in askance, and after sighing heavily and probably rolling my eyes, I humored him, “No, what did he say?”

“It was feeling nostalgic. He said those words exactly, and I felt so frustrated at the time. When I returned home, Basil said he found it in his workroom. Know what’s in there?”

Sighing again, I asked, “What?” loudly.

“Sewing supplies, of which were used to create the cloak in the first place. Basil and I swear we checked that room already, but it wasn’t until I had visited Arsene and he said that we found it.” Sage shook his head, as if he were still in disbelief. “He’s a mystery, but he’s a mystery that solves other mysteries, and for that I must respect him.”

Ducking under a low hanging branch, then tripping but catching myself on the undergrowth, I swore and asked, “So then you know Hammy from previous visits I take it?”

“Indeed,” Sage replied.

“That thing is pretty crazy. I never thought beasts like it existed.”

“She’d kill you if she heard you calling her a beast,” Sage scolded, then added, “Or an it. She’s very proud of her femininity, as she should be. She’s a pretty serpent, none are quite as pretty as her in all the Tamarind Sea.”

There isn’t a good explanation for what I said next. “How the hell do you know that thing’s a girl? I can’t imagine rolling around in the sea with that beast.”

I’d like to say that I was just a little tired. Maybe the walk after all the rowing and lack of sleep was getting to me, and it probably was. And now that I’m much older, have kids of my own, I know that around that age kids are usually just a little too forthright with their opinions, or as my wife says, “They’re little shitheads.” It would take ages for me to get more polite.

At least it would have had I not met Sage.

In an instant, Sage spun around and slapped me across the face with such a resounding smack that when I think of it I can still feel the ringing in my ears and the stinging on my left cheek where his backhand struck me down, sending me sprawling to the ground with enough force you’d have thought he hit me with a warhammer. I curled up immediately like a spider in rigor, fidgeting in my agony. In my life, I had never been hit so hard or so fast, with such curt power that I could feel he had held back an immense amount of strength. Even in the art of striking, Sage held a tact that was polite and superior.

Kneeling down, Sage hit me with a look that could have peeled the bark off the trees surrounding us. My face was hot with tears and the red bruise forming on my cheek, and I looked away before I could feel the regret his eyes were bringing out of me.

The child in me expected him to lecture me, and I braced for an onslaught of words that would make me feel inside what his slap made me feel out.

Instead, he sighed and held out a hand and said, “Come on. We haven’t got all night.”

I got up with his help and after a few minutes of walking in silence I finally asked him, “You going to apologize?”

He kept walking, not even turning around. I growled, sniffed back some snot and rubbed the tears out of my eyes.

“You scared the animals away,” Sage finally said, and when I looked around I realized he was right. Even the small creatures on the river had stopped making noise.

“Maybe it was the sound of you slapping me that did it,” I grumbled, ready to run and go home. I knew I could row myself back since I had done the bulk of the work on my own, but more thinking made me realize both Sage and Basil would be able to catch up to me in an instant. There was no escape.

“Maybe,” he said, his voice low enough to make the bones in my face vibrate.

“More like probably, you asshole,” I said. He spun around and I winced, stepping back and tripping to the ground. He hadn’t even raised a hand to hit me. He wasn’t going to in the first place.

“You make this situation worse than it needs to be,” he said. “I’m not sure what they were doing with you in Persea, and I won’t pretend to know exactly what your life was like. But I know enough to know that the way you are acting is disrespectful to everyone, especially yourself.”

“Myself?” I blurted out, laughing a bit—goodness, I wish I could write lies!

Sage nodded. “Your reaction to me is your anticipation for a punishment, which means you knew what you did was wrong. I had no reason to explain it to you, and I still don’t need to explain why your behavior is ridiculous. You know it is, so why do it? Just be polite and get moving, maybe you’ll learn something if you just quit pushing everyone around.”

Groaning, I got to my feet and slapped dirt off my backside, clapped my hands to remove the dirt from them. “I reacted that way because you hit me before, not because I expected some form of karmic justice.”

Continuing our walk, Sage smirked and decided to take the conversation elsewhere. “You don’t strike me as one who believes in karma.”

“Nah,” I replied. “You get what’s coming to you only when you are outplayed, outsmarted, or strong armed into it. Has nothing to do with some crazy balancing act the universe is playing out. Sometimes you just get unlucky.” Like right now, I thought. These guys were so ridiculous with their strength and speed, even intelligence, though I was loathe to admit it. There was absolutely no way I could get out of this without cooperating.

“Well, it sounds to me like you believe you can do anything you want so long as you have the strength,” he said, his tone mildly condescending. Or maybe I was just hearing things, placing an emotion there to make it easier for me to understand. No one had ever hit me as he had.

“Might makes right, but only for those who wield it,” I said, my cadence the same as my mother’s.

“Wise words,” Sage replied. “Do you understand them?”

“Of course I do,” I spat.

“I don’t think you do.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Tell me what they mean and I’ll show you.”

“Alright,” I said, glaring. Then I sighed, clearing my head up so I could think straight because the day had gone so long that higher levels of thought were beginning to take too much effort, and I said, “Essentially, those who have the strength to get what they want will get what they want, and that isn’t necessarily what everyone else wants.”

“Good,” Sage said, his smile mirthless. His face said it all before he even spoke. “But that’s not the whole thing.”

“Yeah? What else is there?”

He stopped then, and instead of answering me he placed a hand in my hair and ruffled it. Had I the energy, I might have tried to hit him—which would have been futile, of course, but I would have tried. Then he said, “You’ll see. Let’s get going.”

I don’t remember much else from that walk. I know it took a while longer to get to Arsene’s manor, but I don’t believe there were any other major happenings between that moment and then. Perhaps I was sleepwalking, or Sage spoke idly of the food we’d eat when we arrived. Maybe another creature appeared like the baby behemoth. Imagine what you wish, I’m sure whatever you can think of would be much better than what actually happened.

♣ ♣ ♣

When we did reach Arsene’s manor, the amount of disbelief I felt had reached a point where nothing would really surprise me on that island anymore. I expected the unexpected. So believe me when I say that I still stared wide-eyed, mouth agape from sheer awe, at the little cottage in the woods, a cottage made from what appeared to be undergrowth, in a fashion that insisted it was there to begin with, made entirely by natural causes, with the only hint of man’s influence being the smoke stack billowing lazily from the chimney and the man himself standing in the doorway, smoking a pipe and looking rather dapper in his soft robe covering even softer pajamas the color of softer sunset pinks and oranges, which in no way matched the hard, old lines on his face nor the deep blackish blues of his hair.

Sage lit up the moment we got there. “Arsene!” he called.

Without skipping a beat, Arsene puffed once on his pipe and replied with an unperturbed, “Sage.”

Sage grasped Arsene’s hand and grinned wide at him. “You been alright? Feels like it’s been ages since I was here last.”

Puffing again, Arsene chuckled and said, “Come on, Sage, you were here only a month ago asking if I knew where your toenail clippers were and eating me out of house and home. You’d better have a good reason to be here this time or I’ll have to ban you from visiting me.”

“Bah!” Sage said. “Come on, you wouldn’t do that to poor Hammy. She likes when I visit.”

“Yes, well. Regardless, this had better be good.”

Sage pat Arsene’s hand and pulled in close, whispering to him. Then Arsene met my gaze for a moment, brief yet invasive. His eyes were so dark, and his skin was so bright, it appeared to me an alien in pajamas was eyeing me. Then his eyes slid upward toward the trees above and he nodded to whatever Sage had said.

“You can come down from up there, Basil,” Arsene called, still somehow sounding lazy and calm despite his voice raising. “I’ve got plenty of food to give you in here, and I can tell you honestly that no one has followed you here. It is just the four of us.”

When Basil didn’t hop down immediately, Sage got annoyed and looked like he was about to yell for him himself, but Arsene held a palm up. Then Basil hopped down, landing on his feet in a way that made me wonder how his knees didn’t give out.

“You’re sure no one has come?” he asked. You could hear the speculation in his voice.

Arsene nodded. “That’s right. And why would they? Durian isn’t exactly a popular place to go, no reason to conquer it and therefore no reason to go to it. Plus we’ve got some severe wildlife, and I’m to believe there are plenty of rumors of all manner of monsters living here, including gryphons, dragons, serpents, fire monsters, ice monsters, little beasts, big beasts, and of course vampires.”

“And ghouls?” I chimed in, still standing a good thirty steps away.

Arsene smirked and nodded, then waved a hand at me to come over. “Come on, Mint. I’ve got a sandwich with your name on it in here.”

I gave him a wary look and he said, “You like sandwiches with lots of bacon and hot oil and Persea sauce, right?”

“How do you know that?” I asked him, amazed.

“Sage, you did explain to him of my condition, right?” he asked, his expression sly, obviously enjoying the attention.

“What, your clairvoyance? Yeah I mentioned something about it to him.”

“Must just be a non believer then,” Arsene said, gnawing his pipe. “Well, you’re from Avocado, all three of you! Took some time to get Sage and Basil here on the same page as me, so it should be the same with you. You’ll need to keep an open mind if you don’t want yours to break around here, there’s much to tell you—all of you. But that will wait, you boys need some food and sleep.”

With that, the four of us went into his little cottage. And that last line? It confirmed something to me I had been paranoid of; both Sage and Basil were from Avocado, which meant that politically they should be allies to me, and I had no reason to disbelieve them.

Which meant I’d find a reason to falsify Arsene, of course.