Logo by: junecorestudio

Introduction

What if a Disney Princess died? 

Gal the Ghost Princess is my love letter to the animated kids stuff I grew up with, and is the culmination of every time I thought "what if they went further?" What if the revived hero had stayed dead? What if the protagonist loses everything, gets nothing in return, and doesn't immediately learn a grand lesson? What if I actually just posted something I write for once?

I explore these and many more questions in this story, whilst maintaining the sense of whimsy and adventure from the stories I love.

​

On the first night of the annual Star Ceremony, Princess Gal sacrifices herself to save her little sister from a demonic sorcerer. Meanwhile, one of the two spirit crowns is stolen, causing the road between the living world and the Star Nation---the spirit world, to be sealed, leaving Gal trapped in the next life. But it turns out that the other crown had come with her. In search of answers, Gal befriends two friendly spirit foxes, an adventurous riddle-touting fairy, and a mysterious tree-like spriggan. The Star Nation's high council presents her with an opportunity to restore the connection to the living world. Not only is she told it is impossible to return herself permanently---since the connection can only be opened once a year---but to accomplish their mission, they must journey to a rotting land of savage dark spirits. She accepts the risks, but is unprepared for the harsh truths she will learn about herself, and her family.

Want to support Gal the Ghost Princess so this can be more than just a web series? (Animated one day? 😏)

Support my GoFundMe:  Donate

Make monthly pledges as low as $1: Patreon

Listen to the audiobook of this story!  Audiobook

Check out what went into writing this first volume! How I Wrote it

Click this link to read on Wattpad and RoyalRoad, and to find my socials for updates on new Gal chapters:  Linktree

Read the glossary for lore, worldbuilding, and character profiles: Glossary

​But the best way you can show support is word of mouth! Share this story around, make memes, tiktoks, whatever way you want.

I hope you enjoy! I'd appreciate any feedback you can offer:  Vol 1 discussion

This is going to be a free web series with an open writing process. Think of it like an early access indie game. 

I'll be posting chapters every few weeks until I run out of content to post (I have about 20 chapters ready so far). My hope is to make this story free and accessible to build an audience to help support my future projects (I'm not doing everything for free!) Don't feel at all obligated to offer monetary support, just letting me know you read the story is more than enough for me. 

Chapt​​er One | The Spirit Crowns

​

Princess Gal threw her bedroom doors open to flee from the maids as they called out for her.

"Gal!" Tanya yelped. "What about your hair?"

Gal turned around and jogged backwards, her shoes tapping over the echoey hardwood floors. Tanya stood by the vanity mirror, holding a brush and clutching the back of the chair where Gal was supposed to be seated.

"It's fine!" Gal said. A curly strand of dark blue hair fell over her eye, and she tucked it behind her ear. "Y'all just get ready for the ceremony. I'll see you there!"

Tanya and the maids shook their heads with wry smiles.

Gal turned back, running past the tall doors of the royal chambers where her siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles lived.

Her cousin Prince Warwick peeked out of his room with a tired, grown-up scowl that didn't belong on his rosy-cheeked, eight-year-old face. He took after his older brother Prince Owen, with similar devotion to royal responsibilities, studies, and other boring things Gal ignored as often as she could.

"Hurry up!" Gal rushed past Warwick. "You're gonna miss all the fun!"

""Fun" is not what I am worried about missing," he sassed, trying to make his voice sound deep and proper. "And slow down in the halls!"

"I'll slow down when I'm dead!" Gal said, approaching the stairs leading down to the palace foyer.

At the bottom of the stairs, Queen Morgan and her steward hurried out the door together while she signed documents from a huge stack the steward carried.

"Hey, Mama!" Gal sat over the railing of the stairs and slid down rapidly.

Without looking, Morgan said, "I hope everyone else is right behind you, we're running late after everyone fell asleep listening to your cousin's essays."

Gal grabbed the post at the bottom of the rail, using her momentum to shoot across the foyer to the big doors leading to the courtyard. "They're probably worried about lookin' all fancy-like."

She noticed a document had fallen to the ground behind the steward. She picked it up and shoved it into the stack as she passed. "Come on, you two. I don't wanna miss the music!"

Gal sprinted to the many horse-drawn carriages awaiting in the walled-in, floral courtyard.

The warm sky of dusk grew dimmer by the minute to the encroaching cool hue of night. And the northern lights that showed up only once a year teased their arrival with a faint, green glow.

She couldn't believe it was already October seventh. The last twelve months had gone by so slowly, and yet somehow she was still caught off guard by today, Star Ceremony Day, her favorite time of year.

Her little sister Princess January brushed past the legs of Morgan and the steward, causing them to drop the papers.

"Wait for me!" January laughed and ran into her big sister's arms.

Her curly black hair was messy too, making her look like a miniature Gal. Except Gal's dress was blue, while January's was red like their mother's, and her skin was closer to the dark Oya tone of their mother, unlike Gal who was Was'i pale like their father.

Gal scooped her up and twirled her around in the air. "Ride with me, Jan." Gal set her down and held her hand as they ran to the nearest carriage.

She looked back at Morgan and the steward, shuffling through the scattered papers in the doorway, probably trying to find the ones that weren't already signed.

Gal slowed to a halt and slacked her shoulders with a pout.

Jan hopped in place. "Come on, Gally! I wanna see the festivitities."

"Mama needs our help, Jan..." Gal sighed, and pulled Jan back to the entrance.

They sat amongst the mess of papers and tried to help organize them, even though Gal and Jan had no idea where any of them went.

Most were warrants, requesting permission from the queen to allow the police to incarcerate certain criminals.

Many of them mentioned Talbot Federal Penitentiary, the off-shore prison reserved for the worst of the worst.

Most who disturbed the peace in New Machoká city, even for petty crimes, were considered the worst of the worst.

"Please don't read those anymore," Morgan said bluntly.

"Can't this stuff wait just one day?" Gal asked, handing a document to the steward. He thanked her. "Why don't the politicians deal with it? Ain't that why we turned into a democracy in the first place?"

"We still have our responsibilities, sweetheart," Morgan said, taking the rest of the documents from Gal's hands.

"But our responsibilities lie with the ceremony, and makin' everybody happy," Gal said.

Morgan shuffled the papers, avoiding eye contact. "And, these warrants make people happy as well."

Gal glanced at the turquoise Key Crown on her mother's head. The big jewel in the center was shaped like a key, and the rest of the crown was filled with small cubic and triangular gems. It caught some of the light from the darkening sky, giving it a purplish look.

Gal thought, when she was queen, things would be different. She'd cut out the boring stuff and make every day like today, like Star Ceremony Day.

"They make the stuffy old senators happy," Gal murmured and crossed her arms. "I'm talkin' about the people, Mama. The ones that really matter."

"Those "stuffy old senators" are the people, Gal. That's why it's called a democracy."

Gal slacked her head over her shoulder and rolled her eyes. "I know all that, but—"

"Gal," King Lawrence called from the foyer. "Come over here, I got somethin' to show ya." His voice was as wide and heavy as his big belly.

Gal stood from the papers, crunching some under her shoes as she went to her father. "What's up, Daddy?"

Before she even got close, she could smell the scent of peppermint coming from his breath, and he was already crinkling a candy wrapper in his big hand.

"Don't mind if I do!" she said. He handed her the mint, she unwrapped it and tossed it into her mouth, savoring the purifying pepperminty rush.

And as if responding to a dinner bell, Jan ran up, saying, "I want one too!"

Lawrence passed a mint to Jan, then used his eyes to direct Gal's attention to the spirit crown on his finely trimmed head of blue hair. "Don't you think you're forgettin' somethin'?"

Each word that spat past his bushy mustache was powered by a large voice that might have sounded intimidating, if it hadn't belonged to the most harmless, teddy bear of a king on Earth.

She pushed the mint to the side of her mouth with her tongue. "I know, Daddy. My hair's a crazy mess. But I—"

"No," he said playfully, as he removed the Lock Crown from his head and lowered it to her face. It looked much like her mother's Key Crown, except the big turquoise center jewel was shaped like a keylock.

In its reflection, she saw her own freckled face, gawking and slack-jawed.

"Oh yeah, I nearly forgot..." She gently took the spirit crown and turned around, staring into it. "It's my turn this year."

"That's right," Lawrence said. "Now go out there and show your city how we have a good time."

A faint rumble of drums echoed in the distance. That familiar, energetic sound of New Machoká city jazz was rousing to life.

The sky was beginning to show stars and ethereal northern lights, over the golden glow of the buildings. The gleeful spirit of the people in the city traveled with the wind, and over the road connecting to the palace. Gal's heart danced as she looked out at the coastal brick city, imagining all the fun to be had that night.

She giggled. "I don't think they're gonna need my help with that, Daddy."

 

Chapter Two | October Night

Gal peered out the windows of the carriage with Jan as they approached the city. Her chest vibrated to the sound of men and women blasting trumpets and beating drums, beginning to overpower the rattle of the carriages and the clacking of horse hooves on the paved road.

On the small cape near the city, the lighthouse flashed to life. Its bright lens shined across the sea and illuminated a nearby island, where the dark penitentiary building was; A looming silhouette before the ocean horizon; A grim reminder of the darker things in this world, and in this city.

The lens moved away from the prison, and then harsh white lights flickered on from its windows and searchlights.

Peaceful nights such as these were only possible because of the prison, because of those warrants Morgan had signed. But there had to be a faster, less tedious way to get all of that done, Gal thought. But she hardly dwelled on those kinds of thoughts for too long.

I'll deal with it when I'm older...

A small shadow approached the prison island. A boat? She couldn't tell. Who would be going to the prison, of all places, on Star Ceremony day? She couldn't figure it out, and she was done dwelling on the thought.

Gal adjusted the Lock Crown on her head, still trying to get used to wearing it. Unlike her cousins, she hated wearing tiaras. They fell off too easily when she played sports and exercised. But she'd make an exception for the spirit crowns, because of what they represented, because of what they could do.

"Why do I have to ride with these two?" Warwick asked with his arms crossed to the king and queen sitting across from him.

Gal turned around and rudely wrinkled her face at him. "Well, you're the one who hopped in here."

Jan turned around and made a similarly rude face. "Yeah, War wick."

You're not supposed to say the "W" in his name, Jan... Gal wanted to say, but—

Warwick let out an irritated laugh. "That was before I knew you two were hiding under the seats to scare me."

Gal and Jan giggled at the very recent memory.

Warwick sighed. "I shoulda gone with Owen. Even Euphemius is easier to tolerate than you clowns."

"You could always jump out," Gal said, then looked out at the city again. They were almost there.

"I might just do that..." Warwick mumbled.

Without meaning to, she looked at the prison again. The shadow, the boat, whatever it was, was gone.

"Come on, guys," Lawrence said loudly but kindly. "It's Star Ceremony day! There's so much good to focus on tonight." The more he spoke, the more Gal could tell his attention shifted from their bickering, to his excitement for the holiday. "Music, games..."

She turned to him and said, "Rope scotch!" Her favorite game to play with her friends. She had a new record of jumps she wanted to show to them that would surely blow their minds.

Lawrence shut his eyes and sniffed the air with a smile. "And the food."

Gal noticed it too, so many delicious smells wafting from the city by way of the wind.

Meats were being roasted, bread was being baked, and all kinds of fruity and sugary scents mingled in the air with such richness, she could practically taste it all.

The carriage entered the brick thoroughfare connecting to the outside road. The buildings towered over Gal, and the golden windows sparkled in Jan's brown eyes. Tallest of all of them was the clock tower.

Gal had been inside the clock before. Many cogs and steam pipes made the hour and minute hands turn, while orbs imbued with magic energy caused the bright shine that could be seen even from far offshore, almost as clearly as the lighthouse.

The huge hour hand inched closer to 8:00 p.m., the time when the northern lights would finally be ready to open up to the Star Nation.

The city jazz was so loud now, Gal could hardly hear herself think, just the way she liked it.

The people in the streets erupted in cheers upon the arrival of the royal carriages. The upper class city folk were dressed fancier than most of what Gal, Jan, or Lawrence ever wore. The upper class dressed more like Morgan, Warwick, and the other royals who preferred the more regal Was'i style.

But Gal loved the way the lower class dressed. Less ruffles, feathers, and wide dresses—more buttons, cute little bows, and slimmer clothes. And the hats! Bowler hats, top hats, fedoras, cowboy hats from further south, she had a whole collection at the palace.

Their simpler attire was easier to breathe and move around in too. The blue dress she wore now she specifically had tailored by someone from the industrial slums. Those regal dresses her cousins wore would make playing sports impossible.

Morgan tapped on the wall of the carriage with her knuckle, signaling the driver to stop the horse. "All right, children," she said. "Before you go running off, let your personal guards find you."

"Yes, ma'am," the children said, then Gal and Jan zipped past Warwick to the door.

They were greeted with accolades by the crowd. The carriage had stopped in the world famous plaza where the bronze Healing Wounds monument was. A big statue no taller than any of the surrounding buildings. It depicted a Was'i man in a buttoned-up commanding officer's uniform, shaking the hand of an Oya man with a feathered headdress over his long hair, and wearing an ornate shirt with traditional Oya patterns.

Jan ran ahead to the shops.

"January!" Morgan called out from the carriage.

"I'll keep an eye on her, Your Majesty." One of Jan's personal guards ran after her.

Gal put her hands on her hips and shook her head, laughing to herself at her little sister's wild energy.

"Don't you go running off too, dear," Morgan said from behind Gal.

A trumpet nearby played a lively tune, drowning out her mother's voice. Then the drums started up, then the tuba and piano began playing. The band she was hearing was on a small stage set up in front of an alley between some shops. Gal ran towards the music.

Her mother might have been shouting at her, but she paid it no mind.

The band played a fun improvised song, but they were missing something. There was a magic voice amplifier box at the front of the stage, but no one was singing into it.

The man on tuba turned his head to another sitting by the stage with his head down. "Yo, the royals are here!"

The other man looked up, noticed Gal and smiled. "Well, hey there, Princess Gal!"

"Uh, hey," Gal said. "How come you ain't singin'?"

He shrugged. "Ain't no words have come to me all day."

"On Star Ceremony day?" Gal laughed. "Come on."

"Well, why don't you give it a try then, Princess?" He motioned up to the stage.

"Y'know what? I think I will!" She stepped on stage, from where she could see a few guards had followed her.

Morgan and Lawrence stood behind them with their own escort, and Warwick seemed to have gone off somewhere else. That was one less buzzkill.

Gal looked at the Healing Wounds statue, and then up to the northern lights that finally shined at their brightest in the night sky.

"I'll see you soon, Teté..." she whispered to herself, thinking of her grandmother.

Gal cleared her throat, then got close to the voice amplifier and sang.

Once again, we're here together this wonderful October night!

The crowd turned their attention to her as she continued.

To play some songs and eat sweet treats as we gaze up at those beautiful lights. 'Cause we miss our loved ones who can't be here every single day. But for the next three weeks, we'll indulge in sweets with the ghosts of yesterday.

The man by the stage stayed right where he was and finally began to sing.

Thanks to the royal family, the ones who protect the crowns. We look forward to this day when the spirits come around.

Gal and the crowd danced to the music, and she continued.

All year long, our hearts just ache for our dear-departed relatives. But when the skies light up and those pretty crowns touch, we'll laugh and dance and sing with them.

So, thank you all for joining me in this moment of our lives.

The crowd and the male singer joined in.

When we share this time with our long-lost husbands, brothers, sisters, and wives.

Gal took the next line.

Though life is short, we can face our deaths knowin' this night every year, we're gonna have some fun for the next three weeks with those we love right here.

Sing it with me, people!

And sing, the people did.

Once again, we join together this wonderful October night! Said for the next three weeks, it's party and games with the ones who passed up into the light. 'Cause we miss our loved ones who can't be here every single day. But when the spirit crowns meet they'll get to walk these streets, and for the next three weeks, they'll be right here to stay.

Morgan gracefully stepped in front of the stage and sang in a low voice as she looked at the Healing Wounds statue. Everyone's eyes went to it.

Her somber tone brought down the jovial energy. The band even matched her mood.

Centuries ago, this country was filled with war. The Oya and Was'i were destined to fight forevermore.

Gal shook her head and sang vigorously, bringing the energy back.

But enough about that, we're livin' in better times. We get to stomp our feet and clap our hands 'cause the party's just startin' when we lose our lives.

Oh, they're comin', said they're comin' soon all right! Y'all's grandfolks and cousins, and everyone who's died.

Morgan approached the stage, gently grabbed Gal—underestimating her thirteen-year-old's weight with trembling arms, and set her on the ground. She sang again, and the band again matched her mood.

That's because our ancestors sacrificed themselves, to open up the star roads, so we can share in nights like these, with spirits young and old.

​

That's right, Mama, but no need to bring up the drama!

Gal sang, parkouring over cafe tables and window sills to climb up to the top of a canopy, over a shop's entrance. Her mother called out for her to climb down and Gal's guards stood below with arms outstretched, expecting her to fall, but she just continued to sing.

'Cause everything's fine, yeah it ain't so rough—all I've ever known is love. And it's gonna be that way forever, 'cause we're all in this together, and nothing's gonna knock us down, no never...! And why is that y'all?

The crowd answered with:

Once again, we join together this wonderful October night! And for the next three weeks, it's party and games with the ones who passed up into the light.

"That's what I'm talkin' about!" Gal shouted, then joined them in singing:

Said for the next three weeks, it's party and games with our husbands, brothers, sisters, cousins, and wives!

"And that's how we live our lives," Gal said, finishing the song.

She climbed down from the canopy as the people hooray'd and clapped. The guards took her hands and helped her down.

"All right, everybody, it won't be long now till the connection opens!" Gal said.

She looked at the clocktower, its long hour hand was minutes away from 8:00 p.m.

She returned to the band and gave them high fives and firm handshakes, then as she walked away, they began to play a new song.

Gal wanted to thank her mother for joining in the song—even if she was a bit of a buzzkill—at least she had tried for once to do something fun. But she was far, far ahead, speaking to Gal's older cousins and some bureaucrats.

Bureaucrats...

Seeing them gave her the same unnerving shiver down her spine that she had when looking at the prison. Bad things that she decided, as always, to pay no mind to.

I'll worry about all that when I'm older.

"Somethin' wrong, Gal?" Lawrence asked from behind her, the smell of peppermint still on his breath.

Gal realized she'd spaced out and turned to her father. "Huh? Oh, n-no, Daddy."

"Gally! Gally! Look what I got!" Jan ran up, holding a candy apple on a stick that was bigger than her own head. Her curly hair was getting stuck in the caramel. Her personal guard, Gudri, stood close by with a stern face, holding another apple.

"One for me..." Jan took the apple from Gudri. "And one for you." She held the one with hair stuck in it up to her sister.

Gal took it and grinned awkwardly. "Gee, thanks, Jan..."

"I'll get one for you too, Daddy!" Jan said.

"How very sweet of you, darlin'," the king laughed heartily.

Jan pulled Gudri away as Gal stared at the candy apple, but didn't bite into it.

He placed a hand on her shoulder. "Is it about what your mama said—or, sang?"

"Is what?" She looked up at her father's green eyes.

Now, he looked to be spaced out. He blinked fast and grounded himself, then curved his mustache with a smile and patted Gal's cheek. "Nevermind. Just... enjoy the party. Besides, we'll get to see your teté very soon." He winked.

Gal smiled, imagining her grandmother's wrinkly but glossy face when she smiled herself. "You're right."

"There you are!" Someone grabbed Gal by the arm and pulled her away from Lawrence. She looked at him and realized it was her older brother, Prince Euphemius. "They're playin' rope scotch over here, come on!"

He had turned sixteen a few months ago, and he was currently wearing one of the vests their uncle had gotten from overseas for his birthday, opting not to wear the fancy coat it had come with. Under that was a pink dress shirt with a simple blue tie, very unlike a royal.

If Gal hadn't grown up with him, she'd have no idea he was a prince. But he carried himself with a laid-back, yet dignified sort of confidence that made him come across as some kind of up and coming respectable businessman.

"See ya 'round, Daddy!" Gal waved as she left with Euphemius, then handed the apple to one of her own guards.

Lawrence waved back with a weak smile.

Chapter Three | Challenge

"I found her!" Euphemius said, as he and Gal emerged from the crowd to a clearing in the plaza where some children gathered. Three of them were her friends, the other three she didn't recognize.

"There you are!" Gal's husky friend David said.

"What's their total?" she asked, observing one of the strangers hopping over a jump rope and at the same time playing hopscotch. This was "rope scotch."

"I think that boy's over a hundred skips now," Euphemius said.

Gal narrowed her gaze and grinned devilishly. "So, he thinks he's hot stuff, does he?" She rolled up her sleeves.

The jump-roping boy had stopped skipping and knelt over his knees, breathing heavily. Gal approached them, and he noticed her. "Hold up, y'all. Looks like we got ourselves a challenger." He studied her with judging eyes. "I know that look anywhere. The princess thinks she can beat the king."

"Only princesses I see here are you little girls," Gal said, crossing her arms with an impish smile.

Euphemius, David, and her other friends laughed.

"You guys gonna take that one lyin' down?" David said.

"All right, Your Highness," the jump-roper said mockingly, "show us what you got, then." He stepped off to the side.

"Where are y'all from, anyway?" Gal looked at the two boys and the girl as she stepped over the first hop scotch square. "I don't recognize ya'll."

"Grannew Village, just outside the forest," the other boy said. "You wouldn't know it, bein' stuck in the city and all."

"I'll bet you can't even make two skips in that dress," the girl holding the rope said. (Her dress wasn't that much shorter or thinner than Gal's, which was just above her ankles, Gal didn't bother saying anything though). "Even if you could, ain't nobody can beat Jerry at rope scotch." She must have meant the jump-roper.

Gal cracked her neck back and forth over her shoulders and slacked her arms and legs. "Please, I invented rope scotch."

"No you didn't," Jerry said.

"Dude, it's a figure of speech," Euphemius said.

"I-I knew that!" Jerry's cheeks flushed red.

"Ready, Princess?" the other boy said.

"Are y'all ready?" Gal said, grabbing her skirt. "'Cause I wanna see y'all try and beat my score after this."

Jerry spat on the floor. "Piece o' cake."

Gal began swinging the rope. The point of this game was to hop from the first space marked on the ground, all the way to the last space while skipping the rope.

These kids had drawn twelve spaces alternating between one and two, next to each other. When Gal reached the last one, she would hop backwards without looking. If she missed any of the spaces or touched the rope with her legs or feet, she would lose.

She went twelve, fifteen, eighteen, twenty skips.

"You kids better not cheat or nothin'," Euphemius said.

"You kiddin'?" Jerry chuckled. "I wouldn't be able to show my face back home ever again. If it ain't fair-and-square, I wouldn't dare, is what I say."

Thirty-five, forty, fifty skips.

"Not bad." Jerry nodded.

Sixty-five, seventy, eighty, ninety-five.

"But can you beat my score of a hundred-fiddy?" Jerry said.

A fire lit in Gal's eyes.

One-hundred-ten, one-hundred-twenty, one-hundred-thirty.

Jerry swallowed nervously.

"No way..." the girl said.

One-hundred-forty, one-hundred-forty-five, six, seven, eight, nine—

One-hundred-fifty!

"I'll be a goblin's uncle..." Jerry laughed in awe.

The motion of the rope was getting slower and weaker.

One-hundred-seventy, seventy-one, seventy-two, seventy-three, seventy—

"You're on a whole other level!" Jerry put his hands behind his head.

"Lungs of steel, this one!" the other boy said. Gal continued hopping, going over two-hundred skips.

"That's our Gal," David said.

"You sure she's human?" the girl asked.

"Nope!" Euphemius laughed.

Finally, Gal ran out of steam at three-hundred-forty-three skips. Her lungs, legs, and arms burned and felt heavy.

"Who's a... princess now?" Gal grinned while catching her breath.

"Not bad, Your Highness." Jerry bowed.

Gal went up to him and held her hand out. "Oh, please. None of that silly stuff, just shake my hand, dude."

The boy raised his head and their hands met. Gal realized they had been playing right next to the Healing Wounds monument.

"Kids!" A woman's voice came near, sounding distressed. She was about Morgan's age, but far lower in society. Wiry hair, dirty clothes. "Leave the princess alone!"

"We was just playin', Mama," Jerry said.

The woman grabbed Jerry by the arm. "It's time we got ready for your father to come from the Star Nation. They'll be openin' it up any minute now." She looked at Gal and bowed. "I ask for your mercy, Your Highness. Come on, kids." She urged her children along with a rolling arm.

"B-bye, Princess!" Jerry waved.

"What's her deal?" Gal said as she waved back.

"I dunno." Euphemius shrugged. David shrugged too.

Gal looked up at the clock. "Well, we still got some time, wanna go find somethin' else to do?"

Something to distract me from that scared looking woman...

Chapter Four | The Star Ceremony

Gal, Jan, and Euphemius laughed, drying their hair off after bobbing for apples. David and the others had gone off with their families to prepare for the arrival of the spirits, so Gal made sure to meet up with her siblings.

"Gal!" Her eldest cousin, eighteen-year-old Prince Owen, peeked into the tent. "You need to be backstage yesterday," he tensed through his teeth.

Gal playfully threw a towel over Jan, almost completely covering the small girl. "Hey!" Jan giggled as Gal tickled her.

Euphemius threw a towel over Gal's head, her vision went dark. She felt his cold fingers worming into her armpits, where she was most ticklish.

"Come on, Gal." Owen had stepped inside, and then threw the towel off her.

Euphemius stopped tickling.

"Yeah, yeah..." Gal said nonchalantly, but she was beginning to remember how much she had been looking forward to the ceremony. It was hard to remember much of anything with so much fun to be had today.

Owen stood over her, tall and pursing his red lips that looked as if they could have been painted from lipstick, but they always looked that way.

She threw off the towel.

"Nuh uh. Bring the towel," Owen said. Her hair was still dripping wet. "And bring it back here when you're done."

He nodded to the woman who was running the apple game. "We'll bring it back, ma'am."

The woman told him not to worry about it.

"Well, I guess it's time, y'all." Gal turned to her siblings.

"You go! I wanna play more—" Jan dipped her head back in the tub, making a splash.

Gal laughed with a snort.

"Go..." Euphemius nodded toward the exit. "We'll catch up."

Owen urged her along with a hand against her back.

"All righty, see ya'll there!" she said, then Jan lifted her head out of the water without an apple.

"Break a leg, Gal!" Euphemius said.

"Make a leg, Gally!" Jan said... whatever she meant by that.

A pang shot through Gal's chest, feeling the separation from her siblings. She thought it silly she felt that way. After all, they would be together again in mere moments.

Gal approached the town square, accompanied by her royal guards and Owen. An enormous crowd of what must have been hundreds was already beginning to amass around the square's fountain, where a wooden stage had been constructed nearby.

"Well," Owen said, "you know who you're picking to hold the Key Crown?"

"Nope!" Gal giggled.

"That's just like you..." Owen let out a heavy sigh, as if to say I don't have the energy to stay mad at you right now.

They went around to the back of the stage, where her cousins, aunts, uncles, the king, queen, and many guards were.

"There you are!" Morgan scurried over to Gal.

"Sorry, I guess I lost track o' time." She laughed awkwardly.

"My word, your hair..." Morgan's hands got lost in the curly mess on Gal's head. "I can hardly see the crown."

"It'll be fine, Mama."

Morgan struggled to pull her fingers out of Gal's hair and let out a heavy breath. "You always say that."

"And I'm always right, ain't I?'"

"You only see what you want to see."

Morgan's hands came free. A suffocating silence fell between them. Gal knew it would go away if she said something, anything, but she couldn't.

"Nevermind," Morgan said. The tension released, and she took another heavy breath. "Just... let someone fix your hair for you."

"'Fraid not, honey bun," Lawrence said, peeking out the curtain.

The clock tower's enormous bell rang through the streets, completely drowning out all other noises.

"It can't be helped now. Go, dear, go!" Morgan motioned Gal up to the stage.

She passed by all her cousins, aunts, and uncles and stepped out from the curtains to a cheering crowd of hundreds in the square and many more peeking in from the streets. Some even sat on the rooftops of the surrounding buildings.

The clocktower's bell stopped; She could now hear her heart beating with excitement, before a jazzy fanfare played on the stage. She approached the voice amplifier box near the edge, while her family sat down at ornate seats behind her.

"What's goin' on, y'all?" she said into the box, then the music slowed to a stop. "Been a fun night, ain't it?"

The crowd cheered.

"I tell ya what, the last time I led a ceremony was—? Gosh..." She put her hands on her hips and cocked her head. "Six years ago now?" She laughed. "That's the thing about havin' a big family. A lotta sharin' and waitin' your turn."

She watched the faces of many eager families in the crowd, happy as can be.

"But, I love my siblings, my cousins, my daddy, and my..." She looked back, where her parents had sat in the two largest seats. Morgan gave a weak smile that fell quickly.

"And my mama. And... and all my other family. The ones who ain't alive no more too. But that's what tonight is all about. To see our loved ones from the Star Nation. Now, I don't wanna waste anymore of y'all's time. So, let's get this thing started!"

The crowd erupted with joy.

"Last time, I got my big brother Euphy to hold the Key Crown, and help me open the connection. But this year, I'm gonna do somethin' y'all don't see too often. I'm gonna choose a non-royal. A special someone who's been puttin' up with me and my troublemakin' ever since I was a wee little baby..."

She looked down where the palace staff sat in the front first few rows, trying to find her.

"It was a tough choice, 'cause I got so many very helpful maids at home, but this year... I wanna ask a strong, beautiful, irreplaceable woman, the one and only Tanya Smirnova, to join me tonight!"

As soon as she said her name, she spotted Tanya—because her usually calm eyes surrounded by wrinkles went hysterically wide, then she hid behind the other maids.

"I see you, darlin'," Gal said. "Don't you try hidin' from me! Get on up here, silly!"

The maids urged Tanya to go. Finally, she walked out from the crowd with her elderly face buried in her hands.

Morgan came to Gal, removed the Key Crown from her head and passed it to her, then returned to the seats.

Tanya walked up the steps, hiding puffy red eyes behind trembling thick hands.

Gal thought about how she herself never cried much. For some reason, it never really came to her. She wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.

She smiled away the thought, put the Key Crown down on the voice box, then reached up and pulled Tanya's hands away from her face. She took the crown from the box and held it up to her.

Tanya's wet brown eyes darted, until they finally locked on Gal and she took the crown. "Th-thank you so muc—"

Gal shoved against Tanya with a tight hug, wrapping her thin arms around the maid's wide waist. Tanya squeezed back. The poor maid's heart was beating fast like a drum being played by a chimpanzee.

They separated.

"Ms. Tanya, you got anything you wanna say?" Gal motioned to the voice box.

"Uh... uh... I-I love this city!" Tanya said nervously but with utmost sincerity.

The crowd applauded.

Gal removed the Lock Crown from her head, and held it in front of Tanya, who stared and said, "What if I mess it up?"

"It ain't no thing, sweetie! You've seen this done up here a million times. It's just like openin' up any old door."

"Okay..." Tanya rotated the Key Crown so it would fit into the lock-shaped jewel on the other crown. She looked at Gal, who nodded.

Tanya eased the key-shaped jewel toward the lock shape. It passed right through as if the Lock Stone was suddenly no longer solid. The crowns lit up and the northern lights exploded into blinding colors, brighter than a clear blue sky.

The lights dimmed back down, and then separated like curtains and revealed an array of giant symmetrical shapes within. From the openings, thousands of small glowing turquoise figures emerged and descended upon the city.

The crowd in the city cheered and cried.

Gal, her whole family, and Tanya gazed up in awe.

Gal leaned into the voice box. "People of New Machoká, our families have arrived!"

The band on the stage played an uplifting, cleansing tune that washed all troubles away as the spirits dove gracefully to the streets, finding their loved ones and embracing them with laughter and tears.

"There's my sweet Wichapi!" an elderly voice above Gal said, using the Oya word for "star."

"Teté!" Gal called, using the Oya word for her grandmother, Mahpi. Serene and glowing bright turquoise, old and round like Tanya, but a little more plump and with darker skin and more greys in her black hair that went longer than her waistline.

They hugged. Mahpi had a chemical smell coming off her, like paint.

"I missed you so much, Teté!" Gal said, sinking into Mahpi's stomach.

They pulled away and looked at one another. Gal realized her grandmother's clothes had all kinds of paint colors splashed on them, almost drowned out by her spiritual glow.

"Aww. I missed you too." She tapped Gal's nose with her finger.

Gal's cousins ran up to Mahpi and loved on her with hugs.

There was a pained cry in the distance, but Gal ignored it. Someone must have just been really, really happy to see their family. And she thought, even if something was wrong out there, someone else could deal with it.

This was a beautiful moment. Nothing could ruin this.

Not this year.

This was the first year without Mahpi's husband Onwardo visiting alongside her. He had passed to the Land of Peace, where all Star Nation spirits eventually went. If his absence at all bothered Mahpi, she didn't show it as she loved on her nieces and nephews.

"Guys!" Euphemius ran to the stage in a panic.

Mahpi lit up. "Euphy, my sweet!"

"Is Jan here?" Euphy said with heavy breaths.

Gal's blood rushed to her toes.

"She's not with you?" Morgan asked, running to the edge of the stage. "Where are her guards?"

"Here, Your Majesty!" Gudri ran up next to Euphemius and bowed to Morgan, shivering. "We cannot find Princess January anywhere!"

The family stirred with confusion. Gal's heart beat fast and painfully heavy.

Morgan hushed everyone. "Where did you last see her?"

Another shrill cry sounded in the distance, startling Gal. Then another, and then a whole chorus of loud crashes and screams.

"Find out what those noises are!" Morgan stretched a commanding arm out at the surrounding guards. "And leave enough men here to watch the children."

Euphemius came up the steps. Morgan placed a hand on his shoulder as he said, "When I was done dryin' my hair off, s-she was gone. The guards waitin' outside the tent didn't see where she went. She must've..." He blinked fast, trying to find the words. "She must've snuck out the back."

"I want squads searching the entire district for Princess January!" Morgan blurted out.

The distant screams and crashes grew louder and closer, as guards scattered and ran into the streets and alleys.

"Your majesties!" Another guard appeared.

"What?" Morgan scowled at the promise of further bad news.

"The prison! Many of the inmates from the Gallery were let out by these... the reports are saying "shadow creatures." And the inmates are here in the city! They're attacking the citizens!"

Gal and her family gasped.

The Gallery... the cell block in Talbot Penitentiary that apparently contained the prison's most dangerous demonic sorcerers. Gal had never been there, she never wanted to go there, but now that darkness was coming for her home, for her peace.

She remembered that shadow she saw on the water before. Somehow, she'd known it was a bad omen, but she'd ignored it. And now, Gal wondered if she should have pointed it out to her parents.

Was that an opportunity she had missed to prevent all this chaos?

By being herself, ignoring the darkness, had Gal allowed all of this to happen? Was that time here? That time she had always thought of as the far future?

Could she no longer tell herself, I'll deal with it when I'm older?

"Lawrence, Mother," Morgan said to him and Mahpi, "stay here with the children."

She took the Key Crown from Tanya, put it on her long, dark, straight head of hair and stepped off the stage with an armed escort. "I'm going to look for January."

She walked into the shadows of the city, her back tall.

Gal watched her strong mother step into the darkness, meanwhile gritting her teeth at her own cowardice. "This is my fault..."

Euphemius knelt down to Gal's face and put on a tough, stern stare. "No, listen, Gal. It ain't your fault, it's mine. I wasn't payin' enough attention to her."

Gal's face twitched. "It's not just that, it's...."

"It is no one's fault, your highnesses," Gudri said, her face even more stern, more tough than Euphemius. "We should have posted guards at all the doors. But nothing can be done about that now. All that matters is finding the princess."

Gal turned to the dark alleys. "You're right..." She placed the Lock Crown on her head and sprinted to a nearby alley. Facing the darkness.

The guards, Tanya, and her family called out for her, but she didn't look back. If she did, she worried she would lose this fleeting courage to face the darkness.

As Gal ran through the alleys, her personal guards and Jan's guard Gudri followed close by, but Euphemius—with his own escort—struggled to keep up.

"Slow down!" Euphemius called out.

"I gotta find her!" She scraped the words out of a dry throat.

"Do you even know where you're goin'?"

Gal slowed to a stop.

He finally caught up and asked, "Where do you think she could have gone?"

"I-I don't know..." Her chest rose and fell fast. "There's a million things she wanted to do tonight. We've been talkin' about it for weeks! And I... I..." She bit her lip, and her vision was blurring with tears.

She looked at one of her guards, sniffled, and noticed something strange. "Hey... Why are you still holdin' that apple?"

The man shrugged. "I don't know, in case... you wanted to save it for later?"

"It's covered in Jan's hair!" Gal said, wiping her eyes. "Why would I—?" And then she wondered...

"Are you thinking the same thing that I am?" Gudri said with raised brows.

"Candy apples are her favorite!" Gal pointed at Gudri.

Euphemius shook a confused head. "Wait, you think Jan's at one of those grocery stores?" He stuttered, then said, "But there's so many places that probably have candy apples."

"Yes, but the princess knows only of one so far," Gudri said.

"By the Healing Wounds statue!" Gal struggled out a staggered breath. "It's better than nothin', come on!"

​

Chapter Five | A New Age

"Get down!" a soldier screamed in Morgan's ear as he pushed her to the ground behind a toppled carriage. Her gown ripped in many places as the brick street scraped her arms and legs.

The soldier stood, peeked around the carriage and fired his pistol. He pulled back and pressed against the wall, then peeked again and raised his weapon but did not fire.

"Clear!" he shouted. Morgan and the other two men behind the carriage rose and followed him across the street.

All around, her citizens screamed, fled and fell to the ground as they were blasted at and cut down, their blood running through the cracks and crevasses of the street.

The ugly demonic sorcerers grinned with black teeth and deep, pale wrinkles as they slaughtered. They were human, once, but years of devoting themselves to the demonic arts had twisted their faces, making them look and act like monsters. Uglier than goblins, more violent than trolls.

The streets were filled with battle as soldiers fired their rifles and pistols at the sorcerers. Both sides took cover behind anything they could find: benches, crates, fountains, building corners.

From their staffs, the demonic sorcerers and Morgan's royal sorcerers shot violent explosions of ice, electricity, fire, and other elements more powerful than guns.

Her people were careful not to damage the buildings where citizens could have been hiding, but the enemy took no such care; blasting walls, shattering windows and filling the streets with dust and destruction.

The three men around Morgan gasped and collapsed, pierced by ice spikes.

A woman with wild hair and a body covered in ice charged at her. Morgan focused on the crown on her head, imagining the large Key Stone in the center as a part of her very soul. Its spirit energy coursed and pulsed within her body like chills.

A spear of dark green mist twice as long as her body formed in Morgan's hands. She spread her legs to firm her footing and lunged the spear at the ice woman, letting it fly from her hands until she grabbed the spear by the butt, halting its strike.

A small glacier shot out of the ground, blocking the spear and protecting the attacker. The spear was undamaged, but it was frozen in place. Morgan ripped the spear out of the glacier, causing tiny shards and an icy cloud to obscure her field of view.

The ice woman must have been counting on that.

Morgan calmed her mind and listened for the slightest shift in the air, but shrill cries and explosions filled her ears.

The woman screamed right next to her. A war cry? No, this was pain.

The cloud cleared, and her foe was unconscious on the ground, electricity sparking with a harsh bright blue from her back.

Chancellor Winona stood over the woman. She stared at the body with pointed horizontal eyelashes sharpening her already razor-blade, hawk-like eyes. Her black bun of hair was messy and her green uniform was torn and bloodied, but it appeared most of the blood was not her own, as if it had splattered onto her.

"Winona!" Morgan sighed with relief.

The chancellor looked from the body and softened her bird of prey eyes upon seeing Morgan.

"Are you okay?" She stepped over the body and set a hand on Morgan's shoulder.

"Have you seen January?" Morgan said.

Winona's brows shot up. "She's missing?"

Morgan looked at the ice woman's body, then to her own men lying in pools of their own blood. "When I find out who caused this..." She grimaced, clattering her teeth as the sounds of battle raged around them.

"We can't stay here." Winona pressed a hand to Morgan's back, leading her to the shadows of the alleys.

The clock tower shined into the alley where Morgan and the few soldiers and sorcerers she had gathered watched the bloody battles around them. The others she had found, she ordered to search the quieter parts of the city, where there was no battle. Where she hoped January had thought enough to run to.

But Morgan followed the sounds of the loudest, most violent fights in the city, much to Winona's dismay, who had argued she should go with the other team. Morgan argued the best place to search for her daughter would be where the most danger was, in case she was caught up in it, and she wouldn't waver on that point. Winona had eventually given up, and they stalked the alleys and searched buildings, hoping to find a little princess. Hoping she was still...

"So it's just the ones from the Gallery?" Morgan asked, trying to escape dark thoughts.

She could faintly see in the darkness that Winona nodded her head. "But... there's something strange."

"What?"

"They only released the Was'i inmates."

Morgan shook her head. "What...? What does that mean?

"I don't know. But whoever orchestrated this attack has a particular agenda. This is no random act of violence."

A small voice cried out in the distance, where the feathered headdress of the Healing Wounds monument peeked over the commercial buildings of the plaza.

"That's her!" Morgan yelped.

She led the charge as they rushed across the streets leading to the plaza, dodging magic attacks.

Another little scream.

Winona and the others called out from behind Morgan as she rounded a corner, keeping her focus ahead, on whatever she was about to see. The plaza was empty, except, past the monument, a fat man stalked toward a dark corner. January's frizzy hair bounced as she huddled against the wall shivering.

"Hey!" Morgan sprinted to the man.

He turned, and her stomach lurched. That wiry goatee, that wart-covered pale face and missing teeth, this man was the powerful sorcerer, Garten, the one who had killed her mother, Mahpi.

She had never forgotten every grim detail of that day, ten years ago. Garten and his brother Fed had interrupted the Star Ceremony, slaughtering guards, storming the stage and making their way straight to Mahpi. Morgan had run desperately to retrieve the Key Crown from one of her nephews, who held it at the end of the stage.

When she grabbed the crown and placed it on her head, Mahpi was already on the ground. Garten had grinned as they crashed through the curtain and fled the scene. Morgan scraped a cry through her throat, asking, "Why would you do this?!"

Garten had turned around with that same twisted grin and said, "She thought she couldn't be touched! I just showed her how things really are!" His voice was deep, hoarse, and burned her ears like acid.

Soon after, the brothers had been intercepted in the road by the military, and locked away in the offshore penitentiary that was supposed to be impossible to escape. Morgan figured that, knowing they would spend the rest of their lives there would be the harshest punishment she could hash out.

But now, as she rushed to Garten, with all of that past trauma rising in her mind like a swarm of bees, the hatred collecting with a harsh glow in her crown, she realized she hadn't gone far enough.

A figure twice as large as him crashed in front of Morgan, forcing her to stop. It was the younger brother, Fed. He held a red staff with a metal dragon head, its mouth smouldering with fire.

"Out of my way!" Morgan threw her hands forward and blasted a powerful mist of rage at Fed.

He staggered, but brushed it off like it was nothing but a light slap. He tapped the bottom of the staff on the brick road and unleashed a fire blast from the dragon's mouth.

Morgan created a thick wall of mist, blocking the flames. The air around her became suffocating and extremely hot. She turned to see that her guards and Winona were nowhere in sight.

"Get away from her!" a girl's voice screamed in the plaza.

Morgan wished it had been anyone but one of her own children.

Princess Gal charged at Garten.

"Gal, stop!" Morgan called out.

Garten turned to Gal and grinned an ugly fragmented smile. He gripped his black skull staff tightly, standing his ground while Gal ran fast across the brick plaza. The Lock Crown on Gal's head shined bright.

"Gal, no!" Morgan screamed. Gal was far too inexperienced and immature to be using the crown in combat. If she wasn't careful, she could not only harm Garten, but herself and January as well.

Garten summoned a black vine from the ground, growing fast toward Gal.

"Look out!" Morgan cried as she was blasted by Fed's onslaught of flames.

From Gal's crown, a green light blew up the vine, shattering it to pieces.

Garten barked in frustration. The ground quaked and shattered as he summoned a whole sea of vines. The light shot from the crown again and blew straight through every vine, hurling Garten into a brick storefront, collapsing over him on impact.

Fed turned in a panic and hurried to the rubble falling over his brother.

Gal darted to January and held her tight. Their voluminous curly heads of hair pressed together as they cried. As Morgan ran for her daughters, she noticed the entire family was now rushing into the plaza. The spirit of Mahpi, Morgan's siblings and cousins, nieces and nephews, the soldiers she had explicitly commanded to keep the family in one place, and her husband.

Morgan stopped. "I told you all to stay put!"

"Is Jan okay?" Lawrence said, sweating. He stood tall and strong despite the toll put on his body from running.

"Look out!" Euphemius screamed, but before Morgan realized what had happened, smoke billowed from Fed's staff. He held his brother's lifeless body with pain and rage screwing up his pockmarked face.

Smoke covered the wall where Gal and January huddled.

Winona knocked Fed out cold with an attack from behind, and ordered her men to drag him away. The plaza was quiet as Morgan's head tremored to the beat of her anxious heart.

She burst through the smoke where Gal hugged January tight. Morgan smiled at the relief of seeing them unharmed, until she realized the smoke was coming directly from Gal. The smoke cleared, revealing a black scorch against her exposed back.

Her arms fell away from January and she collapsed to the ground.

"Gal!" Morgan panicked and knelt down to her daughter.

January sat in front of her older sister, paralyzed and wide-eyed, staring ahead at nothing. Her young mind unable to process any of what just happened.

Morgan held Gal in her arms and turned her over to see her deathly pale face.

"Gal? Gal...!" Morgan touched Gal's arm, it was still warm, but there was no pulse on her wrist, or her arm, and when she checked her neck and heart there was no beat.

She felt the rest of the family come close, muffling whimpers behind their hands. Lawrence joined her side and touched their daughter's forehead, groaning. She pulled Gal to her chest and held her for the first time in many years, tears soaking her messy hair.

Lawrence wrapped his arms around them, shivering and crying.

Mahpi hovered over to the paralyzed January, whispered gently in her ear and lifted her up, carrying her to the other children.

Morgan buried her face in Gal's hair. A heavy presence fell over them. She looked up to see a pitch black hand that caught no light had emerged from the shadows, lifting the weight of the crown from her head.

The shadow recoiled into the darkness, disappearing with the crown.

"The crown!" Winona yelled.

Morgan looked up to the roof of a nearby building to see the shadow creature standing over the edge, holding the Key Crown. Its body crackled and shivered like a wild, black fire.

"What are you?" Lawrence shot up. "What are you doing?"

Its voice was as dark and staticky as its body. "Enacting centuries of inevitable revenge on these filthy Was'i, and all the traitors who helped them. That means you Queen Morgan."

"Drop the crown," Winona said. "...Whatever you are!"

A rage burst out of Morgan. "You killed my daughter!" She stood with Gal in her arms and bared her teeth, blasting mist at the creature. The roof it stood upon crumbled, but it had dodged to another roof.

"Put it down, and we'll give you a fair trial!" Winona said.

"What I am about to do, is the least these monsters deserve, Chancellor."

"What do you want, demon?" Lawrence asked. "To take the ceremony away from all these people?"

"That's exactly what I want, Your Majesty." It had no mouth, but by the curve of its featureless face, Morgan could tell it was smiling. The shadow turned to her. "Say goodbye to your dead relatives, Queen. Forever."

It dropped to the ground of the roof and vanished.

Morgan clutched Gal in her arms. "I want the entire force searching this country until that thing's head is at my feet..."

"Teté?!" Euphemius panicked.

Mahpi drifted into the sky, where the northern lights were beginning to narrow to a close, losing their glow.

"Mother!" Morgan passed Gal off to her husband and reached out for Maphi. "Mother!"

"I-I can't stop it, Morgan!" Mahpi flailed her limbs.

"Daddy?" A familiar voice called out from behind Morgan.

"No..." Lawrence said grimly.

Morgan looked back at Gal's body in his arms, where a turquoise spirit that looked just like her was ascending.

"No!" Morgan ran to the spirit. Lawrence put her body down and reached for spirit Gal's hands, but they kept slipping away.

"Mama! Da-daddy!" Gal screamed. She floated higher and higher, in spite of her struggling.

"I got you, baby!" Morgan grabbed Gal's hand, but it was as if some unknowable, undefeatable power kept forcing her daughter to slip away. Morgan lost her grip.

Gal flew out of arm's reach as she cried. "Mama! Help me! I-I don't wanna go! Mama! Mama!"

Morgan focused on the Key Stone and formed a long misty arm that reached out and grabbed her.

"I got you, baby!" Morgan nodded. "I got you."

Somehow, Gal slipped right through the mist's tight grasp, only ascending higher, her voice growing more distant.

Morgan looked around in a panic. "Somebody, do something! Save my baby!"

Her family and royal soldiers looked up with red swollen eyes. Mahpi and Gal shot up into the sky, along with all the thousands of spirits that had been summoned that night.

"Morgan!" Mahpi cried, so distant in the sky.

"Mama!" Gal called out as their voices faded away.

Morgan reached with a weak arm. "No..."

The northern lights swallowed every spirit into the star roads. The lights themselves faded into dim translucent curtains, until they disappeared from the living world forever.

​

Chapter Six | The Journey Begins

Gal struggled to open her eyes. Partially because she didn’t want to wake up, her mind calmed by the feeling of a good night’s sleep, and partially because they were too heavy to open. 

Flutes whistled distantly with an ethereal, unearthly sound. Was someone playing music outside her room? A cool breeze skimmed across her arm, chilliest on the tip of her elbow. Had one of the maids come in and opened the window? 

No, as she opened her eyes and sat up, Gal realized she was in a glowing field of rolling green hills. The sky had a purple hue to it, with misty swirly clouds that looked too perfect to be natural.

The flutes played serenely as she looked around, trying to find their source, but nothing could be seen except hills and fields.

The air out here, wherever she was, was clean and made her lungs feel like they would never run out of breath. The breeze hit her arm again, and when she looked at it, she realized she wasn’t in her nightgown, but one of her blue dresses that was great for playing and exercising in.

Where am I? she wondered, as she watched the slow swirl of the clouds, and the gentle dance of the luminescent grass. Am I dreamin’? What the heck was I doin’ before I fell asleep?

Something moved ahead.

A child-shaped, coal-black figure pranced along a winding silver road that appeared suddenly across the hills, a short sprint away that would take her less than half a minute to reach, if only she could move. But she was still greatly fatigued and hadn’t so much as stood. 

The child moved its legs to the beat of a new sound in the air: powerful, primal drums that played a jovial rhythm. Gal finally mustered the strength to stand, and almost felt compelled to move her own legs to the beat, but she was too taken aback by everything going on.

Within the blink of an eye, she found herself in a totally different environment; dark and washed out with no color, under a milky white sky. All the grass had vanished and the hills turned grey, yet the road and the shadow child were still there, on an isolated green hill covered in silver trees, golden rays peeking through the leaves and glistening over the sparkly road. An island of color in infinite bleakness.

The flutes had disappeared, but the drums played faster, and the shadow child laughed innocently, taking the road up the hill. Gal felt compelled to go after it, and so she did, picking up speed until she was jogging lightly up the silver slope.

Behind her, a goose honked, hard to see as it was white like the sky, flying above her with gentle flaps. The bird’s shadow passed over the road and then out of sight past the forest, where a small rainbow of lights flickered for a moment. 

Before the trees, the child waited, looking at Gal with its eyeless and mouthless face, tapping its feet to the drums.

She climbed the hill, steeper than she initially thought, her knees nearly within kissing range. The flutes returned faintly on the other side of the silver forest.

Now at the top of the hill, she stepped through the forest as the flutes joined with the drums and angelic chanting that heralded the arrival of a blinding flash! As bright as it was, she somehow wasn’t forced to squint her eyes. With the lights dimming, they took the shapes of countless creatures ranging from titanic to small. They stood in a new sprawling environment, a land made of rainbows. Some were shaped like people, others like animals and magical creatures she recognized. The rest were unknown.

The smaller ones played and fed in the multi-colored glowing grass, while the giant ones nipped on tall shining trees, reaching with their necks that had to be over ten times as long as a giraffe’s. Far away were glimmering lakes she could sense the fruit-like sweetness of, even from such a distance.

Gal’s eyes welled with tears and she laughed in awe at the dancing, delicious, delightful artistry of light before her. This place created a splendorous sense of love and comfort, like when she was held as a baby by her family and the maids so many years ago. People didn’t usually remember what it was like to be a baby, but in this moment, somehow she did.

The drums, voices, and flutes mellowed to silence and were replaced by calm deep horns, lightly plucked harps, and a slow piano. She looked around for the shadow child, but it was nowhere to be seen. 

Gal sat in the glowing rainbow grass, tickling her palms to the touch, feeling fuzzy and a little damp. She basked in the eternal sense of peace and belonging in this place.

It just felt right.

This was the Land of Peace, the final resting place for all living things, it must have been! The place where her grandfather Onwardo had passed to last year. Would she see him here? 

Then the realization dawned on her… If this was the Land of Peace, that meant she was dead. That meant her home, her friends, her family, were out of reach.

A cold, heavy presence creeped over her shoulders and stung her spine. She snapped around to see… nothing. But that feeling was still behind her, a feeling of scorn and hunger, of a jealous longing. She turned every which way, but still nothing. That presence was always behind her no matter what she did, and it was getting closer. She had never felt so threatened before, so afraid. That comfort she knew moments ago now felt like a lie.

Gal gritted her teeth and ran.

The landscape around her was replaced by an infinite white space. No hills, no silver roads, no trees, no golden light, only emptiness. There was no visible ground beneath her, but she felt a surface through her shoes.

The unseeable pursuer galloped on multiple heavy legs, quaking the invisible ground. She ran through the expanse, hoping something would change and this nightmare would end. 

Oh, to wake up in her bed and go play pranks on Owen and Warwick with Jan and Euphemius. She missed telling her cousin Francisca how incredibly pretty she was when she complained about her weight. She missed the long talks she had with Tanya and the maids, where Gal learned more than she ever had in her official studies. She missed playing sports and rope scotch with David and all her other friends.

She even missed bickering with Warwick.

She missed hugging her daddy's big belly and pulling on his mustache. He'd always let her, but then he'd tickle her in revenge. Gal never wanted to stop doing childish things like that.

She didn't want to be like...

Her mother's serious face came to mind, not bringing with it any memories in particular, but despite their constant disagreements, she wanted—needed so desperately to see her right now. To be in her strong, protective presence. Anything but running in this infinity, hoping an unknowable monster wouldn’t catch her.

As the monster came closer, so too did reality. Finally, she remembered how she ended up here. She had died on the night of the ceremony, pulled into the star roads as her parents, Euphemius, and cousins reached out and called for her. Jan had been curled up in Gudri's arms, either sleeping or choosing to ignore all the chaos around her. 

Gal needed to see her as soon as possible.

The monster pushed her down with what felt like hooves and pinned her over the void with impossibly heavy force.

It did nothing, made no noise, but breathed hard like a bull as feelings of guilt flooded Gal’s thoughts, somehow heavier and more terrifying than the monster. Guilt for not doing all the things in life she knew she should have done. Guilt for not speaking up when she noticed something approaching the prison. Guilt for leaving Jan behind at the tent, and seeing her in danger with that evil sorcerer. Guilt for ignoring that scared looking mother of the rope scotch kids. Guilt for ignoring her own mother.

She needed to be home, to go back to the way things always were.

Finally, the presence spoke. Not into her ears, but from inside her head, using her own voice.

You are not ready.

Then she fell into a deep dark, swearing to do better when she woke up.

​

*

​

Gal woke once again, her eyes raw and crusty, like she had just been crying. She sat up to find herself in a bright blue outcropping of grass. All around was a forest of thick blue trees that looked soft, like they weren't made of real wood. Luminous spores of many colors bounced in the air. Unlike the last place, this one—so far, remained unchanged. It reminded her of the magical forests from the living world.

Gal looked at the green starry sky almost as dark as night, but she could see clearly as if it were day, thanks in no small part to the rainbow of flowing northern lights. Unlike the green northern lights from back home, here they were much closer to the ground, almost within reach. From the lights, small turquoise figures in the distance fell gently to the forest. Was Mahpi one of them?

She stood, studying the blue forest, then her body levitated off the ground uncontrollably. She panicked and rolled around in the air, bumping her butt into a tree. “Ouch!” 

Her arms flailed as she tried to reach down and grab one of the roots. A twig tore into the end of her skirt, scraping her shin. She pressed against the tree and crawled down it, then hugged a root, kicking the twig out of her dress. She finally stopped floating away, but her legs were being pulled up as if she were caught in a strong current of water.

There was a turquoise glow coming off her body. Her arms, her dress, her hair, all glowing just like Mahpi and the other spirits who visited every October.

Her heart sank, weighed by a heavy pulse… She really was dead. 

First things first, she had to get her feet back on the ground. Gal closed her eyes and focused on the spirit crown atop her head.

“Wait, I still got the crown?” She reached up to feel the crown with tangled bits of hair in it, and began to float away again. “Oh no! No, no-no-no!”

Gal clenched her fists and toes, focusing on the crown. Just like her father had taught her, to focus on the Lock Stone as if it were connected to her forehead. Before she knew it, she was back on the ground. She jumped and hovered, but fell slowly back down.

“Okay…” She took a deep breath. “Think, Gal, think. How do we get back home?” 

She clenched her fists and looked to the sky, this time to see a school of over a dozen catfish swimming. Her mouth agape and eyes fluttering, she struggled to realize what she was looking at. 

She shook her head. “Yup, definitely the Star Nation…” She focused on the forest, and with one step forward, decided she wouldn't figure anything out by lingering here. Her best ideas came to her when she was on the move, when she was doing something. And she wasn't ready to think too hard about the fact that she was dead.

She approached one of the trees, curious about how their surface felt when she wasn't clamoring around. She poked it. Its smooth surface reminded her of gelatin, but it didn’t jiggle or squish when she pressed it, remaining firm, and smelling vaguely fruity. But there hadn't appeared to be anything growing from it, or from any of the trees around. 

She continued ahead, stepping over the shorter roots and walking around the taller ones bulging out of the ground. Some had spaces beneath them where a person could crawl and hide in.

The forest was mostly quiet except for a calm chiming noise that she couldn’t find the source of, eerily like the flutes from the Land of Peace. It was as if the forest itself had the sound in its very being. 

Two bright blue lights caught her attention past a few trees ahead. She squinted her eyes and traversed the roots to see what was making the lights move, but they seemed to be moving all on their own, and she could swear they had fluffy tails. Just as she noticed that detail, they disappeared behind some trees. 

She rushed ahead, hoping not to lose them, but they were gone.

“What's your name?”

Gal turned with a start to see the inquisitive eyes and black nose of a blue glowing fox in her face. She screamed and shot back until she bumped a tree, hitting the same spot on her butt from before, certain she'd bruised it by now.

“Benny!” another fox said angrily, crawling up from beneath the thick roots of a tree. 

Their limbs dangled under them as they hovered. Unlike Gal, they didn’t panic at all about being off the ground.

The first one, Benny, had a boyish, bright-eyed look to him. He seemed clueless, but in a cute way, like a lost puppy who didn't know he was lost. His face was round and fluffy, which complimented his timid, slightly raspy voice. 

The other one had a beard of fur falling from his furry face, he was clearly older. His face was thinner and sharper. 

They probably hadn’t looked like this when they died, unless they had died recently, since spirits show their age through physical growth, much like things do in the living world.

“What'd I tell ya about scaring the newbies?!” The older fox said, his nasally voice carrying a similar edge and intense energy of a city fellow from one of the countries north of Machokà.

“Sorry!” Benny said, with a strange mix of sincerity and carelessness. “Just, the silence was killing me and she looked so friendly and I just really, really wanted to say hi.” He bounced in the air and wiggled his paws… with a strange mix of sincerity and carelessness.

Gal stood. “What are y’all?”

“What, never seen foxes before?” Teddy asked with a sarcastic smile, feigning the tone of something like a disgruntled merchant. What, never seen quality products like these before?

Gal struggled to find the words. “Uh, not talkin’ ones. Foxes ain’t supposed to talk. Not like magical creatures and people do.”

“They’re not?” Benny cocked his head, asking sheepishly.

“Then again, Teté did say animals can talk in the Star Nation…” Gal rested her chin on her hand.

Teddy sighed. “Look, sorry about Benny here. He died when he was only a cub, so he don’t know how the living world works. Or the Star Nation, as it seems.” 

Benny shrugged with an awkward smile.

“I knew it,” Gal said. “This is the Star Nation.”

“Uh-huh.” Benny nodded. “That’s right, Princess.”

“Wait, how do you know I’m a princess?”

Benny’s puppy dog eyes looked up and down at nothing in particular as he gathered his thoughts. “Okay, so uh, you see, the waka sent us here to find anyone who suddenly got returned from the crowns disappearing, and I was like wow, that's a lot of work, and Teddy said it's our job, ya clod, and I said I'm not a clod, you're a clod! Except, I don't know what a clod is, and I didn't wanna hurt my brother's feelings by saying something possibly really offensive, and—”

“The guys at the office told us to come pick you up,” Teddy said in a matter-of-fact way.

“Or, yeah, that- that answer's good too.” Benny slouched forward, nodding and hugging his fluffy tail with a nervous grin.

“Let’s start over.” Teddy cleared his throat. “I’m Teddy, this is Benny. We’re yoki, or spirit assistants. We help the waka—also known as the government—with whatever they need. We’re kind of like, uh… the servants at your palace.”

Benny floated excitedly ahead of Teddy and spoke fast. “Except we’re like , y’know, not alive, or people, or live in a palace, or—”

“As I was saying…” Teddy cleared his throat with greater insistence. “The waka knew you were coming, so they sent Ben and I out to come pick you up.”

“Oh, all right...” Gal said, peeking at the rainbow lights through the leaves, then she looked back at them. “Umm, do you guys know if my family is okay?”

“That was what we were supposed to remember!” Benny said, craning his neck to the sky as if his realization had come from above him. “See, I told you you forgot something!” He lightly punched Teddy's arm.

“I didn't forget anything, you did!” Teddy opened his sharp-toothed mouth wide, about to scream something, but his eyes shot towards Gal. He clamped his jaws shut and took a deep breath. “Yes, your family is perfectly safe. The escaped convicts have all been taken care of, and your family is doing just fine at the palace.”

An enormous weight, one that had been with Gal ever since she was chased by the monster, lifted from her mind and body. She floated off the ground a few inches.

“Oops!” Gal said, pushing herself back to the ground. The foxes looked at her with puzzled, furrowed brows. “So uh, where are y’all takin’ me anyway?”

Benny’s eyes lit up. “Why, Tatanka City, of course!”

“Woah. The Tatanka City?” Gal's jaw practically dropped to the floor.

“That's right, the big TC!” Benny’s tail danced behind him.

“Well, I’ll be—! I've only ever heard about it, and seen Teté’s drawings… Omigosh, Teté!” Gal’s head pounded as she covered her cheeks with trembling hands, startling Benny.

Teddy floated to her, gently raising his hands. “Woah, woah, it’s okay, Princess. She’s here, in the Star Nation. If she's not somewhere in the forest, she might already be back in the city.”

Gal slowed her breath and dropped her hands. “Okay… okay, but- but I need to find her.”

Teddy nodded, smiling for the first time. “We’ll help ya find her. Uh, but in case we don’t on the way there, we need to take you back to the office to sign some paperwork.” He shrugged. “It’s just routine stuff for every new spirit.”

“Oh, all righty, then…” Gal said, trailing off, not liking the idea of being a spirit at all. “It’s just, I need to find her and figure out how to get back home.”

Benny and Teddy’s ears drooped as they gave each other a knowing, worried look.

“Oh, boy… uh, Ted?” Benny grabbed his own tail.

“Leave it. She needs time,” Teddy said uneasily.

“Time for what?” Gal asked, feigning ignorance, but knowing full well what he meant. Maybe if she didn't accept it, reality wouldn't either.

“Let's just… find your teté, Princess,” Teddy smiled. “Her name's Mahpi, right?”

“You know her…?” Gal playfully smacked her forehead. “Oh, duh! Of course you do! Her bein’ royalty and all.”

“Well, we don’t know her know her, but we know of her,” Teddy said.

“I'll introduce ya’ll! She's the sweetest grandma ever, and y'all will be nothin’ but blessed havin’ her as your friend.”

The creeping reality of her situation made her throat dry as she smacked her lips. She cleared her throat and said, “Well then, what're we waitin’ for? Uh, lead the way, boys!”

Benny saluted and marched away on all fours, hovering over the ground. “Right this way, Your Highness!”

Teddy sighed, running a paw through his pointy beard. “That’s uh, the wrong way, Ben.”

Chapter Seven | The Great Spirit City

They followed a stone paved road through the luminous forest, with Benny hopping in the air ahead, urging Gal and Teddy to hurry up.

The road was lined with woodsy fairy architecture. Street lights made of leaves, vines, and glow berries. Not unlike those seen in the fairy forests back in the living world, except here, everything had a floatiness and spectral glow.

Something fleshy tickled Gal's elbow, making her go, “Oh!” 

A pink glowing fairy had tapped her with her tiny finger. She looked up with curious black bug eyes, tilting her head as her insect wings fluttered with excitement.

“Well, hey, there,” Gal said, as the fairy flew up to her face, nearly blinding her with the pink glow.

“Hi, Clio!” Benny said, doubling back to the others.

The fairy, Clio, stayed focused on Gal and said, “Old can be new, and young can be old. What are you, girl? I have not been told.” Her voice was small and charming.

“Huh?” Gal raised a brow and glanced at the foxes until the realization dawned. “Oh, is this one of those fairy riddles?”

“You good at fairy riddles, Princess?” Benny asked.

Gal scrunched her nose in thought. “Not really. I've studied ‘em in books, but no one fairy tells the same riddle. So it's like, you never know until you meet one, y’know? Besides, every time I go to the forest, y’know, back where I'm from, I always have an armed escort. Fairies... usually avoid me.”

“I'll help you out on this one,” Benny said. “So basically, she said…” He paused.

“You forgot, didn't you?” Teddy said flatly.

Benny scratched the back of his head, laughing sheepishly.

Teddy sighed, not sounding completely annoyed, but more like a big brother that might have been thinking: I'd expect nothing less from him.

“Old can be new, and young can be old. What are you, girl? I have not been told,” Clio asked again.

Gal tapped her chin, really immersing herself in this question, in this interaction. Anything to keep her mind busy. “Let's see… Are you askin’ if I, a young girl, am new to the Star Nation?”

The fairy smiled wide and nodded as her wings flapped rapidly.

“By chance, is that a human girl I glance?” A new fairy said from the trees, and then many others peered out at Gal.

“How sad.” The flutter of Clio's wings slowed at some sudden realization, and she descended toward the ground.

“Oh, what's wrong?” Gal asked with the most comforting smile she could muster, as she crouched till she had her hands on her knees.

“Always tragic to see such a fate become a young lass or lad.”

Gal's smile weakened.

Clio looked at the foxes and flew back up. “Anyhow… greetings, Benny and Teddy.” She grabbed her leafy skirt and curtsied to them, then to Gal. “Clio is what they call me. Pray tell, what might the human girl's name be?”

Gal put her hands proud on her hips. “Gal. Princess… Gal…” In the trees, something big and glowing a weak green glow was moving toward her.

No, a tree itself was moving.

A smaller tree, not one of the largest ones. As it got closer, it became clear that this was no tree, it was a spriggan. Standing three times taller than the average human adult, it stared at Gal with a deep wisdom in its saggy tree bark face like a rotting tree, or an old shed. Also much like the face of an elderly human.

The spriggan crackled and snapped as it walked slowly. Its glow was dim, as if it were very old and fading. It said nothing, but seemed to mean no harm. Its unnerving silence and heavy breathing, however, reminded her of the monster from the Land of Peace…

More spriggan spirits appeared all around the path. Each one old and staggering, yet careful. They looked at one another with frowns. A chill ran through Gal’s spine, that weight of guilt and fear from the Land of Peace returning.

Teddy rested a paw on her shoulder. “Don't worry, the spriggans protect the Entrance Woods. They’ll protect you too.”

“They… look like they don't trust me,” Gal said.

“They get like that around humans,” Teddy said. “No one knows why, only the spriggans.”

“It's nothing,” Benny insisted with a wide, sharp-toothed smile. “The old trees are just shy. They're real friendly once you get to know ‘em. The only thing they hurt are dark spirits.”

”Dark spirits?” Gal’s lips were suddenly very dry, remembering the stories of dark spirits.

“Yup. Just the usual, evil snarling shadows of malice that want nothing more than to make others suffer to fuel an insatiable and unending thirst in their tormented souls. Nothing the spriggans can't handle. Besides, the dark spirits don't come around much these days.”

“Why's that?” Gal asked.

Benny scrunched his black nose dismissively. “We can worry about that later. Right now, we got a city to explore.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her away.

Gal looked back at the fairies in the road, and the spriggans watching carefully from the trees. “Farewell, Princess!” Clio and the other fairies waved. “Enjoy your new home with much splendor and jest!”

Gal waved back with a forced, faint smile. No, this won't be my home. 

Not yet.

​

Further down the road, Gal had been greeted by more spirit fairies and gazed upon by concerned spriggans. She also met more talking spirit animals such as wise old buffalo, carefree horses, friendly shrews, relaxed reptiles, fast-paced birds, and so many more. 

All the animals were kind and welcoming, but she couldn’t stop to chat for long. Gal only waved and said quick hellos as she was urged along by Benny. His non-stop energy reminded her of Jan.

“I’m uh… I’m sorry about what happened, by the way,” Teddy said. “We heard about the inmates breaking out, and the spirit crowns being taken, and uh, that must have been tough.”

Just perfect... The last thing Gal wanted to talk about right now.

“It’s all right,” she said. “Everything’ll be fine as soon as I find my teté— Wait… Did you say “crowns”? As in plural?” Now that she thought about it, hadn't they mentioned that when they first met?

“Yeah,” he said. “I really hope they get them back one day. Those poor humans, not getting to see their loved ones from the Star Nati—”

“I got one of the crowns right here.” Gal reached into her messy hair and tried to pull the crown off her head. It wouldn't move.

“What?!” Teddy yelped. “One of the crowns is here?!”

Gal struggled to remove it from her head.

“Princess…?"

“It's stuck!”

“Well, your hair is pretty messy.”

“No, like, I can't even move it!”

“Let me try.” Teddy floated up to her head. He tugged and tugged tirelessly at the crown, but he couldn't get it to move.

“Geez, it really is stuck up here.” He floated back down. “Did that hurt at all?”

“N-no, actually. I didn't feel a darn thing.”

“Are you sure it's not just a reflection of the crown? Like, how your body and your dress are reflections of how you were in the living world?”

“I don't know.”

Teddy scrunched his eyes in thought. “The high spirits are gonna want to check this out…”

There was a bright light at the end of the path.

“Here we are!” Benny announced.

They stepped out of the forest and overlooked a sprawling city of blue buildings, taller than any she had ever seen in the living world. They were built over an island that floated in a green expanse with white stars. The rainbow northern lights passed over the shortest buildings and went right through the tallest. Down the hill she stood upon, a wide rope bridge led over the huge gap between the edge of the forest and the city island.

“Woah!” Gal said. “It's even bigger than Teté made it sound!”

“Pretty cool, right?” Benny said. “Well, what’re you standing around for? Come on! There’s so much to show you!”

“Uhh, Ben! Wait! We need to take her to…” Teddy tried to say, but Benny was already crossing the bridge. 

Teddy sighed. “Try not to let him lead you astray, Princess. The high spirits are gonna want to know you’re here before you go wandering off. Especially with that crown in your hair. Oh, but uh…” He leaned in close. “Let's keep the crown a secret. Just…” He messed up her hair around the crown to hide it better. “Until the high spirits confirm whether or not it's the real deal.”

Gal raised a brow. “Uh, s-sure thing...”

Teddy looked at the bridge. “Well, we better go chase down my brother.”

They went down the hill and stepped onto the bridge.

Benny doubled back, looked Gal up and down, then frowned.

“Is somethin’ wrong?” she asked.

“Well, I’ve been meaning to ask...” He pointed at her shoes. “Why are you walking on the ground?”

“Huh? Oh, I-I haven’t gotten the hang of the whole floaty thing yet.”

“It's not that hard. If anything, forcing yourself to walk like that is harder,” he said while mimicking a prancing motion with his four legs.

“She’ll figure it out eventually, Ben,” Teddy said.

“Why not now? Y’know, we could fly right across this gap if we wanted to.”

“Oh, I really don’t think—” Gal tried to say, but Benny grabbed her hand.

“Oh, nothing!” He laughed. “C’mon, I’ll show you how easy it is!” Benny pulled her off the bridge, and they fell together.

“Benny!” Teddy yelled.

Gal’s stomach sank as she fell.

But she had only fallen as far as Benny pulled her. They looked over the green void, floating in place.

“See? We’re perfectly safe!” he said.

Gal laughed as she curled her legs up and stared down at the green expanse. “You’re right! This is awesome!” She was filled with an empowering surge of confidence.

Benny let go of her hand. She stayed right in the same spot, then swished her arms forward as if she were swimming. 

Benny guffawed. “No, no-no-no!” He keeled over, grabbing his stomach. “It-it's way simpler than that.” He wiped tears of laughter from his eyes. “Think about how Ted and I've been doing it.” He floated forward, making no movement with his limbs. “Now you try. There's no technique or anything, you just do it.”

“All right,” she said. Without much thought, she floated forward. “Wait, it's really this easy?!” she yelped as she kept floating.

“Yeah, see? There’s nothing to it!”

Teddy peeked over the edge of the bridge. “All right, you two. Get back up here so we can—” 

Gal and Benny flew away toward the island. Teddy called out for them as they rocketed across the sky. When they approached the island, a familiar, low rumbling of drums and upbeat percussion came from the city.

“Is… is that what I think it is…?” she asked.

“”Jazz!”” They said together.

Gal shot over the edge of the island and overlooked the city. Flying contraptions driven by people took the place of carriages for transportation. The frames were thin, as if the machines needed little to hold them together. They had many exposed cogs spinning together, with colorful steam popping out of whistles and exhaust pipes. 

“How do those things fly?” Gal said with a crack in her voice.

“Just like we do!” Benny said. “Nothing to it.”

Spirit humans and animals floated around together, mingling, laughing, and playing jazz. It was a lot like New Machokà, but also much more magical.

“Well, Princess,” Benny said. “How's about a tour?”

“You betcha!”

Teddy was flying toward them, calling out and demanding sternly they come back to him.

Benny snapped his fingers to the beat of the city’s music and sang. 

It might be hard at first to learn that you've just died. But don't be sad, Princess. It's just like bein’ alive.

He leaned in to her ear. “Or so I've been told…” 

They flew through the city, passing and waving at all the friendly spirits. Most were animals, as the humans had been visiting the living world. That was until—

There was so much to do, and so much left behind. But don't you worry or fret, ‘cause Benny's by your side.

“You two can goof off later,” Teddy said. “We need to make sure the higher ups know she’s here—” Benny cut him off, singing:

Worry about that later! Let spontaneity kick you into gear!

He grabbed her hand and they zipped through an avenue as he sang:

I know that life is hard, but don’t you see this place?

You ain’t alive no more, there ain’t no pain to face!

And that’s what brings me to say:

There's nothin’ to it!

I know you can do it!

There's nothin’ more simple than doin’ this little thing. It's called calmin’ down and havin’ fun, takin’ in everything.

“Guys!” Teddy yelled.

They flew into a restaurant where the tables didn’t touch the ground, and some people ate upside down or even did tricks to catch their food.

“Aren’t they gonna get indigestion?” Gal asked.

“In the Star Nation, that’s a silly question!” Benny sang as he took her over to the counter.

“The usual?” A large female bear asked plainly.

“This is juvenile…” Teddy accidentally rhymed with the bear, facepalming when he realized it.

The bear handed Benny a large bowl of green glowing cheese.

Benny held the bowl out to Gal. 

It might be hard at first to try out something new. But don’t be scared, Princess, I know you’ll like this spirit fondue!

She grabbed the fork and the bowl. A long string of cheese wobbled in the air between the bowl and the fork. She put it in her mouth, her tongue felt as if it had become the creamy cheese itself. Her cheeks flushed with an overwhelming but comforting warmth.

“Yum!” she said.

“Don’t just eat it!” Benny took the bowl and fork, rolled the cheese into little balls and threw one into Gal’s mouth. “Experience it!” 

The cheese melted over her tongue and teeth, running with richness down her throat.

Benny juggled the other cheese balls and threw them into his mouth, then sang:

This is an easy trial, there can be no denial.

Gal sang as she took the fork and twirled more cheese around in the air. 

I think I get it now! I had to try it out.

She slurped up the cheese. 

It’s even more delish, when you don’t treat it like a normal dish!

​

In Tatanka City, there is no reason to fuss. 

Benny sang.

“All right, guys. Now, can we go to the office?” Teddy groaned when he realized he'd accidentally rhymed with Benny.

There's nothin’ to it! 

Benny sang. They flew out the restaurant together and passed through the streets. 

No thought to put to it!

It's just as easy as doin’ any simple thing. Livin’ here's nice, ‘cause you don't have to worry ‘bout anything!

Gal and Benny sang together as they flew up next to the towering buildings. 

I know we can do it!

There's not that much to it!

New things are hard at first, that's the way things always been. But here in the Star Nation, you ain't gotta worry ‘bout a single thing that's happenin’.

Gal reached a river of northern lights. She flew alongside them and grazed her hand in the rainbow. The sparkly lights separated around her hand and covered her in glitter. She giggled, then a slow, relaxed song came out of her. 

I've never felt so free before. No wonder birds sing such beautiful songs. It seems like here when I fly so freely and soar, nothing can ever go wrong.

The sound of upbeat jazz once again caught her attention below, on a small floating island that looked like a public park full of streams, bridges, fields and trees.

She flew down and danced by the humans and animals who played their instruments. A pronghorn stole the show the way he energetically played a saxophone.

Benny floated next to Gal, dancing and singing. 

Now that you see the way, I think you've got a plan.

But sing it again, Princess, I just wanna hear it again.

Together they sang:

There's really nothin’ to it!

I know we can do it!

There's no single reason to worry ‘bout anything. It's all about takin’ it easy and embracing every single happy thing!

​

Gal sang the rest alone.

I know I can do it!

I'll put my mind to it!

I love it here, it's gonna be great to stay when I die. But that time's not yet, I gotta figure out how to get back to my normal life—

The musicians began playing out of sync with each other and then awkwardly stopped playing.

Benny and Teddy’s ears drooped.

“W-what happened?” Gal asked, glancing around at the animals. “Why’d y’all stop playin’?”

Teddy took a deep breath. “Ben, it’s time.” He placed a paw on his brother’s shoulder.

Benny’s round, fluffy face sagged with a frown. “You’re right, Ted.”

“What… w-what's goin’ on?” Gal asked with a little laugh.

“C’mon, Princess,” Teddy said. He put his paw on her back and urged her along gently. “It’s time we got you registered. Then we’ll go find your family.”

“Oh! So you guys know how I can get back to the livin’ world?”

“Uh,” Teddy scratched his head. “No. I mean… your family here, in the Star Nation. It's just your grandmother now, right?”

Gal nodded. “Good point. I would like to find my teté, so I can take her back with me.”

Benny whimpered.

“Oh, it’s all right, Ben,” Gal said, cupping her hands together. “I’ll be back one day. Nobody lives forever, right?” she chuckled.

Benny burst into tears.

“Oh, no! What’d I say?” Gal stepped back.

Teddy frowned. “We’ll uh… let your teté explain it to you.”

It was becoming clear that she couldn't keep this up much longer…

Chapter Eight | Aftermath

Morgan gently laid Gal's body into the coffin. She stepped away and glanced at Lawrence, who watched her with a frown.

Two royal sorcerers stood on each side of Gal beneath harsh, cold lights coming from the high windows. They looked to the queen for her approval.

Morgan nodded.

The sorcerers stepped across the rough stone floor with their boots squeaking, echoing loudly in the small chamber. They pointed their staffs toward the coffin, and from the spiral, wooden tips, sprayed a layer of frost over Gal. Their hands were unsteady; the younger sorcerer's face twitched, while the elder contained his feelings beneath a deep frown.

They pulled their staffs back and took a breath, Gal now completely encased in a block of ice.

“Leave us,” Morgan said, her voice ringing sharper than any other sound in the room. Her eyes remained locked on Gal as the sorcerers left.

“This ain't right,” Lawrence said with a weak, shaky voice. A side of him Morgan had rarely ever seen since they had met, back in their teens.

She huffed. “Like I would give up on my daughter...” She placed a hand on the ice covering Gal's face. 

“Clingin’ to her body like this… it ain’t healthy. W-we need to get the kids together, we need them to know she can't come back.” 

A drawn-out silence made Morgan hear every anxious movement of her tongue, every bob of her throat, every pulse in her head, until Lawrence said, “We need to hold a funeral and—”

“I already told you…” Morgan lifted her hand from the ice and clenched it. “That is not happening. We are going to get the spirit crowns back. And we are going to undo Gal’s..." She bit her lip. "...Premature death. We'll need her body intact to make it work.”

Lawrence smacked his dry lips. "But it's impossible, honey. Death… it ain't somethin’ that can be undone.”

Morgan inhaled a heavy breath. “Then I will make the impossible possible.”

“Morgan…” His voice cracked.

“Your Highness.” Winona said from the door. “It's time.”

Morgan headed for the exit. “Go, be with our children," she told Lawrence. "I need to face the senate.”

“You don't get to talk to me like that,” he said firmly, emotionally, stopping her with his voice. “You don't get to push me away.”

The way he spoke, the way he had always spoken, no matter what tone he took on, got under her skin, paralyzed her. She knew he was always right, and right now, that was dangerous. She needed to get away from him before he converted her to his side. Before he weakened her resolve to do what needed to be done.

“We will talk later,” she said, avoiding eye contact. “Right now, the children need you.”

“They need both of us,” he whispered desperately.

She finally looked at him, almost wincing at his pained expression. “If I do not take care of things, they will never see their sister again. Do you want to be the one to tell them that we did not even try?”

He stared, not needing to say anything to tell her what she already knew.

She blinked away her shame. “Now, if you will excuse me, I have a meeting to attend with the senate.”

She went for the door, where Winona waited with her arms held behind her.

“What are you gonna tell them?” Lawrence asked.

Morgan stopped in the doorway. “A bit of what they want to hear, a bit of what I mean.”

“Not the senate… I meant the kids."

Morgan left the room without looking back. "So did I."

​

She stared out the carriage, her thoughts lost in the puddles in the brick street. It had rained that morning, but hours later the street remained wet. The rain clouds still covered the sun, making the sky and the city a ghastly, hazy green. 

The passing citizens were red around the eyes, trudging across the sidewalks with weak slouches and sunken cheeks, as if they had chosen not to eat. Like the ground was soaked in their tears. 

Those who looked at her did so with pleading, hopeful eyes, proving they had some strength left in them, even if it was only ignited by her presence.

The carriage came to a stop. Morgan stepped out and stood before the circular senate building. A concrete structure—sleek, modern, sturdy, unlike the typical brick architecture of New Machokà.

Winona joined her side. “Whatever happens, I will do everything I can to ensure the safety of our people.”

“Even in my absence, you mean,” Morgan said bleakly, staring at the building.

“I pray it won't come to that.”

Look where prayers have gotten us... Morgan wanted to say.

The doors opened before them by the blue uniformed senate guards within. They passed through the lobby that once displayed traditional Oya weapons, flutes, drums, clothes, and other precious artifacts. In their place were simple abstract paintings and twisting sculptures that were supposed to "mean something." All Morgan got out of them was that their owners wanted to show off their wealth, and that they wanted more.

The senate had been busy redecorating this building recently, as if they'd anticipated, or hoped for, the ceremony and traditional ways to be no more than things of the past. To embrace the new age style this building had originally been constructed with.

She and Winona were being escorted by their own guards in red uniforms, and the senate guards, who watched them carefully, giving the impression of waiting for an excuse to draw their pistols. The senate guards were not loyal to her in the slightest, it had been that way the last six years, she could feel it. Used to be this country was one big family, and that was still true for the most part, but something had changed in those few years ever since she made the deal with the senate.

For the first time, she had not rivals with opposing ideas in her own party, but enemies who looked to bring her down if she didn't do what they said. And now, on her way to meet with them, she feared they would only strangle her tighter in their web of lies.

“They already call you the Blood Queen,” they had said, those years ago. “Think about what they would call you if they found out the real worst things you have done.”

She ascended the lobby stairs, passed through a few ornate hallways, then entered the meeting room, where the senate sat behind a long table upon an elevated stage.

The room’s projector brightly cast an imposing symbol on the screen behind the senators, a top-down view of a round crown of iron, adorned with bay leaves. The senators were essentially nothing but black silhouettes before the projection.

Every available seat on the stage had been taken. This room used to have a round table where everyone in the room was on equal ground.

“And where do we sit?” Winona asked impatiently.

“Right there’s fine,” Senator Zuzecà said, pointing at the carpeted floor at the center of the room. His face was hard to see, but Morgan could tell he had that irritatingly boyish scowl he always had. The sort of face that said, I deserve the world, and I shouldn’t have to work so hard to have it.

Morgan and Winona exchanged a worried look, then stood at the center. "We used to have seats," Winona hissed through gritted teeth.

"Do not let it get to you," Morgan whispered.

“Queen Morgan,” Zuzecà said kindly, like an old friend. “Chancellor Winona, welcome back.” He cupped his hands on the table.

“Why have you summoned us?” Morgan asked. “I need to be out there helping my people.”

Zuzecà dropped his head, then looked back at them. “About that… We are beginning to question the uh… necessity for you and the royal family. To cut to the chase— we plan to put a poll out to our citizens, presenting the question of uh… whether or not you should maintain your position of authority.”

“And, when does this poll go out?” Morgan asked calmly, anger stirring within. “We are dealing with the fallout of a crisis at the moment. This is hardly the time for re-evaluating the country’s leaders.”

He pressed his hands forward gently, defensively. “Oh, it— it wouldn’t be until after next year’s election. I— excuse me, the senate just want to make sure we’re all on the same page. You know, a good time in advance. But uhm, if anything, this is exactly the time to be, as you put— “re-evaluating our leaders.””

This Oya man had only been a senator for a couple years after the deal had been made. Morgan knew his kind: fresh, never been knocked down a peg, thinks he's invincible. And yet, she had the sense that he’d been in on the deal, in some fashion, from the beginning, even before he was voted in. His conniving stench was all over it.

“Such a thing has never been proposed before,” Morgan said, “not by the senate.”

Zuzecà leaned over the table, playfully surprised, then glanced at the other senators. “You wouldn’t suggest… that the people don’t have the right to choose their leaders?” 

He looked back at her and frowned like a little boy begging for something. “I mean— this is New Machokà, isn't it?” he asked with a powerful clench of his fists. 

She wanted to pin him as a nepo baby, but she didn't know anything about his parents. Her spies had found nothing particularly suspicious about his past. He’d gone to school studying political arts just like the other senators, he’d worked a part time job delivering mail from the post office, and he kept many birds in his home. 

The strangest things about him were that he had no living relatives, and she couldn’t find out if he had anyone in the Star Nation or not. She’d asked Mahpi to do some digging, but there was nothing on record up there that mentioned anything of his family.

Another strange thing: was his supposed age. Oya people didn’t show age as quickly as Was’i did, but even still, he looked over a decade younger than a man supposedly in his mid-thirties.

“Don't worry about that poll,” Winona said, stepping forward a little. “We'll get both of those spirit crowns back, revive the ceremony, and all of this will be but another event that strengthens the bonds of our people. The family will show their worth, as they always have.”

She looked back at Morgan with a smile. Morgan faintly returned the gesture.

“Oh, by all means,” Zuzecà said sarcastically, “if— if you have a plan, we would love to hear it. It's just…” He scratched the back of his neck, under his slightly unkempt bun of black hair.

The oldest senator leaned forward, his flabby chin wobbling as he said, “we find it hard to believe a problem of this magnitude realistically can be solved.”

Zuzecà nodded.

“Well, our queen has a particularly exceptional talent for accomplishing impossible tasks, of which I know we're all aware,” Winona said proudly, turning her head to all the senators. Coming from her, that comment was reassuring.

“We’ll give you that,” the old senator said, a ravenous greed in his voice. “Working with us these last six years to lock up those criminals has more than proven her capabilities.” Coming from him, that comment was heart-rending. Half of those “criminals” were innocent people.

Morgan swallowed dryly. “Then you have nothing to worry about.” She forced a smile.

Zuzecà let out an agitated sniffle, pulling lightly at the tie under his suit. “Well, we can't exactly stop you from trying. But just, know this: Whatever resources you spend, whatever… reprehensible things you do to get your way, you will pay the price for it all, in the end. One way or another.”

Morgan couldn't see her face from behind, but Winona's cheeks pulled up, signaling a smile as she said, “We appreciate your concerns.”

“What would you do?” Morgan asked, stepping ahead of Winona, confirming her smile as she saw it weaken.

The old senator faintly raised his brows. “What?”

“If you had this whole country to yourselves,” she said, as if speaking to a small child, motioning the whole country with her arms. “If I were out of the way…” She gave them a curious press of her brows. “What would you do?”

Zuzecà stood tall, rising to her challenge, eclipsing the empty space at the center of the iron crown on the screen as he turned, slowly walking behind the others. “What would we do?” he repeated facetiously, mockingly.

He came to the steps leading off the stage. “Your Highness, this country that we've been leading together is…” He wove his fingers together stiffly as he stepped onto the carpet. “...sandwiched, if you will, between two very unique periods of time.” He took a sharp breath as he approached the front of the stage. “On the one hand, there's the monarchy, a dying breed in our modern world, that represents a sense of… trust with its people. An old-fashioned, familial, comfy idea. Well, that is if you believe in fairy-tales.”

The senators chuckled.

He stepped away from the stage and strolled toward Morgan. “And then there's the more grown-up, modern alternative: the ever-growing, ever-expanding idea of capital.” He said capital with a punchy reverence, walking past Morgan. 

“A chance for the people to take matters into their own hands. For the sharp-witted to take the reins and steer his people toward a future of certainty, security… and safety,” he said softly, with focused eyes.

Zuzecà and Morgan turned around to face each other. Winona stood between them, off to the side, glancing carefully at the two of them, likely feeling the same friction in the air Morgan did.

He stood directly beneath a spotlight, his face now clear as he tilted his head and lifted his brows like a dog. “And so, what do you have to offer, Your Highness?”

“The Star Ceremony,” she said, concretely.

He relaxed his shoulders and grinned, as if hearing an old, familiar joke. “There you have it.” He held his arms out, presenting Morgan to the room. “The senate strives to strengthen our country by facing reality, while the queen chases fantasies.” 

Morgan ran her lower lip under her front teeth, then said, “the ceremony was not a fantasy last night. It was not a fantasy for the last three centuries.”

Zuzecà nodded. “Yeah, but that's the thing about magic. You notice how it's only gotten weaker with time?” He shrugged. “Just saying, there’s a reason humans are the only living things to have ever conquered the oceans, built great structures—cities! And why we'll probably set foot on the moon, in our lifetimes…” He held an arm out to the old senator. “Well, most of us.”

The senators chuckled, even the old one humored the joke.

Zuzecà looked Morgan dead in the eyes with his own green-eyed stare. “It's because humans don't need magic to survive!” he said passionately, proudly. “We— this country, have been relying on it for too long, not reaching our full potential as opportunists! As pioneers!”

The senate agreed, nodding their heads.

“We don't need that power! We are power! That's what it means to be a family! To be human!” He stretched his arms out to his sides and raised his head to the bright ceiling, as if challenging a higher power. The senators stood, clapping their hands.

Morgan's heart quaked, and she noticed Winona's chest moving fast.

Zuzecà walked across the room, waving his arms theatrically. “We survive, we persevere, we outlast!” He dropped his arms, green eyes shining as he said, “So, I ask again, Queen Morgan, what do you have to offer, at this moment— at this… turning point in our history?”

Morgan looked to Winona, who saw her and tried to straighten quivering lips. 

She took a breath and raised her chin. “The same thing I always have. The same thing that has kept our people safe and happy for hundreds of years.” She shook her head. “I do not need fancy words to show that.”

Zuzecà smirked and squared his shoulders. “No, because you do all your work in the dark.” He looked her up and down. “You get your hands dirty, and nobody but the people in this room has ever been the wiser. And it’s thanks to everything you’ve done for the people in this room that it’s stayed that way, these last six years.”

He inhaled, then inched toward her. “Well, now that we all know where we stand, now that we all know you’re going to spend the next thirteen months chasing wild geese…” He held his hand out to her with an unnervingly welcoming smile. “Let the games begin.”

Morgan raised her chin higher, looking down on him, which wasn't hard since he was about a couple feet shorter than herself. 

“Indeed.” She glanced at his hand. “Are we done here?”

His eyes glistened softly, as if he were about to cry, but then he pulled his hand away and smirked again, then slowly went back to the stage.

Morgan headed for the exit, Winona following behind her. When she entered the hallway, she faintly heard Zuzecà say, with a chuckle, “And what a fun time we'll have.”

Chapter Nine | Fellowship

 

Morgan went for a walk in the city, in spite of the insistence from her guards and Winona saying she should return to the safety of the palace. With her crown gone, she was defenseless, at least to anyone who was unaware of the knives concealed in her leggings under her gown.

“I have all of you, I will be safe,” she had said.

Horse drawn carriages passed by with clacks and rattles, while Morgan’s own carriage and guards on foot followed close behind, but far enough away not to hear her and Winona. She trusted her guards, but in such uncertain times, one could never be too careful.

She studied the buildings here in the South district that were undamaged, but she was heading toward the East district, where the worst of the fighting had taken place.

“That Zuzecà’s getting bold,” Winona said, lightly kicking a puddle in the sidewalk. 

The humid, musty air snaked up Morgan’s nose when she took a breath and said, “It’s not a recently acquired skill for him.” She scowled as she imagined his irritating smirk. “He’s been planning this, waiting for his opportunity to bring us down and win the people to his side.”

“But is it enough?” Winona said. “I mean, the royal family's had the trust of the people for centuries. For some senator to just come in and be their new hero because we failed once…”

A pile of loose bricks lay in the three-way intersection ahead, signaling the beginning of the city’s ravaged areas.

“It will not happen overnight,” Morgan said. “He is not only waiting for the election so he can have another term in the senate, he is waiting for the reality of the situation to set in for our people. For them to see how much we have failed them, and that there is no coming back from…” They turned the corner, coming to a square where the fronts of buildings were crumbled. “...This.” 

Debris was hauled away by citizens and military personnel alike pushing wheelbarrows, and horses pulling carts. Green medical tents were set up in the square, with the injured lying and groaning all around the tents.

“It was worse last night, when you escaped to the palace with your family,” Winona said. 

They walked through the square, and when Morgan noticed bloodstains in the street, Winona said, “The dead have since been taken to the morgues. The ones we've found so far, anyway.”

A man passed in front of them, pulling a horse by its reins as it huffed, hauling a cart. Morgan held her breath, peering into the cart; it only contained rubble. But as Winona had said, last night, she likely would've seen much worse.

Just ahead of her, body bags were wheeled out of a tent by military personnel. People who must have succumbed to their wounds, only surviving to this morning.

Winona swallowed. “I was hoping you wouldn't have to see that.”

“No, I need to be here.” Morgan watched the bags be carefully lifted into a cart that had just backed into the square. “The children are safe, the prisoners are…wherever they fled to, and now I can focus on being here for the people…” She trailed off at the sight of a red flag, a few feet taller than herself, flapping in the breeze, its pole stuck in the rubble of a storefront, as if it had been placed there after the destruction. It portrayed a white symbol of interlocked hands in a circle.

A gruff voice said, “They've been found all around where the attacks occurred, Your Highness.”

Morgan turned to the cart, where the soldier had spoken. He smacked the back of the cart, signaling the driver to move, then approached her, removing his green cap to wipe sweat from sparse, thin hair.

“What is that symbol?” she asked.

“I dunno, ma'am. Apparently they just popped up overnight, nobody saw who did it.”

“Okolakiciye,” Winona whispered thoughtfully.

“Fellowship?” Morgan said. “Is that what it means?”

“Your Highness?” the soldier said.

“That flag represents the Oya word for “fellowship”,” Winona said.

“I know the word, but I have never seen that symbol,” Morgan said.

Winona's upper lip twitched with a suppressed rage, a response most curious to Morgan. “The Was'i tried to extinguish that symbol when they invaded back then. They wanted to dehumanize us to make our people look like nothing but savages to the rest of the world.”

The soldier mournfully held his cap to his chest.

“You speak as if you were there,” Morgan said.

“In a way, I feel a connection to the past.” Winona pulled the feathery prayer fan from her belt and stared at it, running her fingers through it. “The ancestors from my bloodline loved this flag, what it stood for. Thank Wakan Tanka that much information has survived throughout the years.”

The soldier shook his head. “It don't make any sense… All the attackers were Was'i. Why are they plantin’ these flags? Do they even know what it is? Heck, I-I didn't even know till just now.”

Morgan squinted at the flag. “That is assuming the ones who planted them had anything to do with the attackers.”

“If we discover anything, we'll send word your way, Your Highness,” he said, then placed the cap on his head and stepped away. “‘Scuse me.”

Morgan looked away from the flag, observing the destruction of the square.

An old woman approached her with a dour, sagging face.

Winona stepped ahead of Morgan, and to the woman, asking, “Are you injured?”

The woman passed Winona, trembling, and said, “W-what happened?” 

Winona placed a hand on her shoulder. “The queen is busy at the moment—”

“No, this is why I am here,” Morgan said with a hand raised to the chancellor, who removed her hand from the woman.

“After centuries of protecting the crowns,” the woman's voice wavered, “and the people of this land getting to see their loved ones…everything being just fine…what changed?”

Morgan stared blankly, she had no idea what to say. She had been dreading this moment of confrontation, but now was the time to figure out how to comfort her people with words, her weakest asset. She had always left the speeches and ceremonies to her husband and the kids. The crowns, the ceremony, the only things within her control she had to bridge that gap between herself and others, were now gone.

“Did you royals…did you get complacent?” The elder shook her head and frowned. “No, o-of course not...” She broke eye contact and looked to the ground. “Something out of your control happened, right?” She looked at Morgan. “Nobody could have predicted anyone could escape the prison, right?”

Morgan wetted her parched lips. “We are still investigating what happened. I visited the prison last night after the attack, and we have yet to find any leads. But—” Morgan could hardly maintain eye contact. “But know this…” She straightened her back even taller than usual. “We will get the ceremony back, and you will see your loved ones again.”

The woman's eyes lit up along with a youthful smile. “Yes, yes, of course! You'll-you'll fix everything, right?” She sounded as if she were trying to convince herself.

Morgan nodded once, strongly.

The woman bowed quickly. “Thank you so much! I-I lost my daughter last night to those criminals—”

Morgan's heart jolted.

“But-but because of the spirit crowns, and the star roads…“ The woman looked to the cloudy, dreary sky. “I'll get to see her anyway, s-so it's fine!” She smiled the most unconvincing of smiles.

Morgan smiled thinly, probably looking even less convincing. “Yes, everything will be fine.”

“Good, good…because if I can't see my daughter again…” The woman's smile fell and she pointed a firm, skeletal finger close to Morgan's face, then pulled it back and clenched it to a fist. “I'm as good as dead myself.” She let out a tense breath, smiled again, then walked away, leaving Morgan to stare at the wet, bloodstained street.

I know the feeling…

Chapter Ten | The Weight of Silence

Gal had been signing a huge—as she would put it: “higaggle” of forms she never bothered to read for what was probably only a few minutes, but felt like forever.

A yellow glowing weasel lady stared through Gal with an unreadable expression. Was she angry? Bored? Impatient? For all Gal knew she could have been happy on the inside but was the sort who didn’t show it, not that she was used to reading the emotions of talking animals. Whatever it was, she felt scrutinized by the weasel.

Gal’s leg tapped anxiously as she sat in the spirit wood chair, signing form after form. A weighted seatbelt kept her tethered to the chair, so she didn’t have to put effort into keeping herself from floating away.

Once she was done here, no more distractions. She needed to see her teté, and then figure out how to get both of them back home and resume the party. No, it was too late for a party now, after everything that had happened. She just wanted to see everyone again, even if there was no party.

There was always next year.

Her leg tapped faster, now thinking of the spirit crown stuck on her head. Was it the real thing, transported to the Star Nation with her? Or just a copy? Even when she did meet the high spirits, would they even be able to tell the difference?

There were other, more unsettling things on Gal’s mind, but she tried her best to shut them out, which was hard since she was sitting in a silent room and being stared at by a judgemental weasel.

Gal slid a form to her, finally noticing a bare desk. She hoped this meant no more paperwork. 

“Is uh…that all of ‘em?” she asked, the heavy bags of boredom under her eyes lightening at the prospect of finally getting to leave.

The weasel’s eyes scanned the form for a few slow, slogging seconds, then filed it in with the rest, and turned to stare at Gal.

Gal raised her brows in anticipation.

The weasel wiggled its nose, and said nothing as it blinked three times.

“Yes,” the weasel finally said.

Gal’s eyes darted around, trying to find the meaning behind the yes. “Uh, “yes” as in, I can go…?”

The weasel blinked. “Yes.”

Gal slowly unhooked the tether from around her waist and hovered over the chair.

“All right…” she said, backing away slowly. “I’m uh, I’m gonna go now, is that all right?”

The weasel sniffled once. “Yes.” She turned to the file cabinets and shifted papers around.

Gal groaned with relief and turned to the door.

“Wait—” the weasel said.

Gal stopped in front of the door and gritted her teeth with anger, liable to break the nearest object or throw the chair across the room.

“Don’t forget your free concert coupons.”

Gal blinked fast with utter confusion as she turned back to the weasel, who held a small card out to her. Gal took the card—seeing that it was in fact a coupon for a jazz concert—then said, “Uh, thanks…” She grinned, then rushed to the door and closed it behind her and took a breath.

She faced the lobby where Teddy and Benny had been waiting, tethered to two of the many seats in the room. Gal had been in there with the weasel for so long that the amount of spirits in the lobby had quadrupled from before. Most were humans…crying, hugging one another and looking just as lost as Gal had felt when she first arrived to this world. She passed them, trying her best not to bump into anyone as the room was full, and most weren’t watching where they were going.

Teddy and Benny noticed her, untethered from their seats and floated to her.

Teddy stroked his beard. “Well, now that all of that’s sorted, we better to take you to the high spirits.”

Gal looked around at the milling crowd. “Are these…?” She couldn’t find the words, or the courage to say them.

“Yeah, they’re just now coming in after the attack,” Teddy said, next to a frowning Benny.

“How long has it been?” she asked. “What time is it back home?”

“It would be early morning time there now, wouldn't it?” Benny said, looking to Teddy.

“Yeah,” Teddy said. “Spirits spend quite a while travelling through the star roads before finally ending up here.”

“What about my teté, any word?” Gal asked, staring at the door and hoping to see her grandmother rushing in.

Teddy shook his head no. “We asked around, nobody here at the office knows where she is. She probably never came back to the city and is still looking for you in the Entrance Woods.” He then chuckled longingly. “That's what my granny would have done.”

“B-but what about the dark spirits?!” Gal panicked.

“Don't worry about that, Princess,” Benny said, putting his paws to her shoulders and looking her in the eyes. “Remember the spriggans? It's been decades since anyone's been harmed by a dark spirit.”

Gal looked away at the blue wooden floor. “Only decades…?”

Benny smiled. “Your teté’ll be fine.” He returned to Teddy’s side.

“She'll turn up,” Teddy said.

“All right.” Gal nodded. “Well, I guess in the meantime, let's go and see the high spirits.”

Teddy let out a relaxed breath. “It's so nice when you two actually listen to me.”

​

* 

​

Spirits travelled around a bustling street; entering shops above, below, and beside Gal. Some of the building entrances were high off the ground. The architects must have had a heyday when they realized they could build in a place where everyone can fly. The Star Nation was exactly like what her teté had described, and yet so much more. Her imagination did not live up to the true wonder of this place.

But now, with the rest of the human spirits returning, there was no jazz music filling the air. No wide smiles and jovial laughter.

“Things are really starting to turn bleak…” Benny said with a frown.

“You don’t have to come with me, Benny,” Gal said. “If there’s someone else you wanna be with, someone who  might be uh…be sad about comin’ back early, then go be with them.”

“Oh, that’s all right, Princess. I-I wanna spend the day with you and make sure you get settled in. Besides, it’s uh, kinda my job. Today, I need to look after Gal the Ghost Princess.”

“Ghost Princess!” she giggled.

Benny laughed with her. “But is—isn't that what you are?”

“Well, sure. I don't wanna stay like this, though.” She looked at her glowing clothes and arms. “I got a little sister to look after, and I miss my daddy…and my mama—she must be worried sick.”

Bringing Gal out of encumbering thoughts, they turned a corner to see an enormous mausoleum floating high, overlooking a stony plaza. It cast a massive shadow directly underneath itself over a darkened courtyard.

She could hardly form a word at the sight. “Is this…?”

“Yep!” Benny said. “This is Wakan Tanka Tipi-La. The temple of the great spirit.”

“It's huge!” she said.

“Wanna check it out?” Benny asked.

“That was, uh…the whole point, Ben…” Teddy’s brows pressed together.

“Come on!” Benny twirled in the air.

Gal trotted high over the plaza like she was climbing invisible stairs. They passed over the short steps and came upon a grand entrance: an ornate slab door, with symbols resembling the squares and triangles from the spirit crowns.

Teddy flew to the door and held his paws out at Gal and Benny.

“What's the matter?” she asked.

“Mind your manners in here, you two. Benny, you know better. This isn't like the restaurant where it's okay to act like a goofball.”

Benny's ears drooped. “Yes, bro…” He seemed to have realized something.

Teddy pushed the towering slab door slowly but effortlessly, as if it weighed nothing. Dark pillars filled the dim expanse within, surrounded by a thick blue smoke obscuring the view in all directions ahead, up, and down. An infinite abyss.

“It's so…” Gal was speechless, the reticence of this place making her voice loud in her head.

“Just follow me,” Teddy said, “and don't be rowdy.”

People in hooded robes roamed the ghastly void. The air clogged her lungs with dust like in an old attic. Just as her grandmother had described, being in the Star Nation didn’t mean she was invincible. Her spirit lungs, heart, stomach, brain, and every cell in her body were just as susceptible to pain, damage, and aging as their living world counterparts. Although she had learned earlier that spirits apparently can eat upside down and not experience indigestion.

And all of that was why she couldn’t just wait around for the rest of her family to come here. What if she died here, passed to the Land of Peace, and never saw them again? Nobody really knew how the Land of Peace worked, or if it even existed at all.

That beautiful place made of light she had dreamed of just before arriving here, could have been just that: a dream.

Besides, she couldn’t bear the thought of not getting to watch Jan grow up.

The blue miasma backed away as they traveled further, and still there seemed to be no end to it, only large rooms that filled some of the spaces between the pillars.

Something about this temple called the white void and the monster from the Land of Peace to Gal's mind.

“Hey, guys!” A teenage boy’s voice passed through the fog, high and fluctuating through the motions of puberty. Quite out of place, but reassuring.

“Hey, Abram,” Teddy said.

Abram was around Euphemius’ height, a couple feet taller than Gal, and probably also sixteen years old like her brother was. “What are you two doing back so soon?” His voice cracked.

Teddy came close to Abram. “There's a certain, uh…matter, we need to discuss with the high spirits, privately.”

“Wow, that important, huh?” Abram raised his thin brown brows.

“Potentially,” Teddy said.

“Okay. Tell you what, I'll see if my mentor can get them together.” He looked down at Gal. “And hello to you…Princess Gal?” His friendly smile turned slack-jawed, the racing of thoughts in his mind showing in his eyes.

“Umm, yeah…” She grinned as she scratched the back of her head.

“Oh my gosh...” Abram bowed. “Uh, f-forgive my ignorance, Your Highness.”

“Oh, you’re all right, dude.” She held her hand out for a handshake. “Just treat me like anybody else.”

He raised his head and tilted his brows. “Uh…” He shook her hand, looking confused at first, but then he smiled. “Pleasure to meet you, Your Highness. I’m Abram, I'm a junior spirit guide. I've only been dead for about a year.” 

She wondered how he could say that so casually.

“Oh, so you lived in the city?” she asked.

“Of course, only people born in Machoká can come here, y’know.”

Gal nodded. “Oh, yeah r-right. Gosh, I’m all out of sorts lately.” She awkwardly laughed away the encroaching uncomfortable thoughts of being dead, then cleared her throat. “So, uh…you—you go to spirit guide school?”

“Yep! I totally recommend enrolling, if you haven’t already. It's probably the most fulfilling thing anyone can do here.”

“She'll uh…think about it,” Teddy said. “It's a bit soon for that.”

Abram pursed his lips, looking like he felt stupid. “Oh, right! Sorry. You just got here and there’s…a lot you need to adjust to.” He paused for a moment, thinking deeply about something. “But, hey, if you ever need help figuring stuff out, just come and find me at the school on weekdays.”

Gal smiled along. “Okay.”

Abram shifted his jaw with curiosity. “All right, I gotta know, what’s so important that you guys need to see the high spirits? Or am I not supposed to know?”

Gal looked at Teddy. He glanced around, then nodded. “You can show him. Just a peek, though.”

She parted her hair around the crown. Its turquoise glow reflected in Abram’s brown, enraptured eyes.

Benny gasped. “Is that a spirit—” he tried to say, but the others shushed him. He bit into his tail gently with an anxious grin.

Abram looked around. “You’d better keep hiding that thing, Princess. Until you see the high spirits.”

“Teddy was sayin’ that too,” Gal said. “How come?”

Teddy came close to Gal and lowered his voice. “Let’s just say the uh…Star Nation isn’t the perfect place Benny makes it out to be.”

Benny leaned in and whispered. “What are we whispering about?”

“Teté did mention that…” Gal murmured. 

Just because someone hadn't done enough wrong in the living world to become a dark spirit, that didn't mean all light spirits had good intentions. As much as she didn't want to admit it, this place was no utopia. Especially not after the disruption of the ceremony.

Abram began to hover away. “I’m gonna go find my mentor. You guys can go ahead and wait in the council room.”

“Thanks,” Teddy said.

“So, what're these high spirits like, anyway?” Gal asked as they floated toward the expanding mist, trying to ignore its imposing nature.

“Honestly?” Benny said. “They’re more of a mystery to me than even the spriggans. They just…they give me the heeby-jeebies, y’know?”

“Don't worry about what he says, Princess,” Teddy said. “They just don't show themselves much, except on special occasions. They come across quite cold, but they mean well. Your grandmother’s actually friends with one of them, y'know.”

“Oh, yeah,” Gal said, remembering hearing stories of Eden Arjona, an old friend of Mahpi's who was now on the high spirit council.

They passed by a huge black door with two armored, serious-looking men posted near it with pistols holstered to their belts and holding sharp spears.

“Woah, what's in there?” she asked.

Teddy urged her along. “That's where Wakan Tanka itself resides,” he said quietly, reverently.

Gal peered back over her shoulder at the dark door… 

The Great Spirit.

Chapter Eleven | High Spirits

The council room was bleak. A tall wall with seven imposing seats on top encircled the small area Gal and the foxes hovered in, above which were long stained glass windows that cast a muted green light into the room. Every little grunt and groan from Benny echoed as he struggled to use his back leg to pick a piece of food out of his teeth.

“Benny!” Teddy whispered through his teeth.

A loud creak filled the room. Above the wall, seven spirits descended from an open door, finding their seats. All were human, dressed in ornate robes. Some were dark-skinned Oya, others Was’i pale, and the rest were of other racial descent from all over the living world. The patterns on their clothes looked like the ones seen on the spirit crowns: squares, diamonds, triangles, and lock and key shapes.

“Voice your reason for summoning us,” a female high spirit said. “We are told this is very important… And why is Princess Gal here? She should be with her grandmother.”

Teddy floated ahead a bit and bowed. “Lady Arjona…” (He pronounced the “j” in her name as an “h.”) “High council, there is something…troubling about the princess’ arrival to the Star Nation.” He put a paw on Gal’s shoulder. “Show them…”

Gal separated her hair around the crown. The high spirits leaned forward and their eyes went wide.

“Is this some kind of joke, yoki?!” one of the male high spirits said.

“I-I wouldn't dream of it, high spirit!” Teddy took a breath, then looked at Gal. “Go ahead, try to take it off.”

Gal tugged at it, but it wouldn't budge.

“As you can see, we can't even so much as remove it from her head,” Teddy said.

Lady Arjona floated away from her seat and descended to Gal. Even through the turquoise glow, Gal could see her skin was a light tan, and she had many wrinkles between her brows and around her unsmiling smile lines. Her cheeks were slightly sunken to an unhealthy looking degree, but she carried herself proudly and firmly.

She studied the crown. “There must be some significance to the crown coming here with you…”

“So, is it the real thing?” Teddy asked.

“The royal family could not find the Lock Crown after the princess’ spirit passed into the star roads, and the thief who stole the Key Crown appeared to only take the one. Still, there is only one way to find out… Princess, do you know how to use it?”

“The crown?” Gal said. “No, not really. N-not on purpose. But right before I got sent here, I-I hurt someone with it real bad.”

“You killed him.” Arjona’s brown eyes were piercing. “We saw everything.”

Gal said nothing.

“Try it again,” Arjona said.

“What?”

“Do what you did to that sorcerer…” She pointed to the wall. “...To that wall.”

“A-are you sure?”

“A little damage to a wall is nothing in the pursuit of this knowledge.” She stepped aside and left a clear shot at the wall for Gal. “Go on, then.”

Gal gulped and focused on the crown as she shut her eyes. She could see through the veil of her eyelids that it was glowing on her head, but no matter how much she focused on it, nothing came out. Peering into the darkness, her thoughts fell into the places she had been trying to ignore ever since she arrived to the Star Nation. 

The crown rumbled as she saw the warty, grinning face of the evil man who almost killed Jan. He looked at Gal, laughing. His disgusting mouth of sparse, black teeth and yellow saliva made bile build up in her throat. 

She opened her eyes and tried to conjure a blast of light at the wall, but still nothing came out. She stopped to catch her breath.

“I'm sorry, I can't-can’t do it,” she said, bending over her knees. She cleared her throat. “Let me try again—”

“No need,” Arjona floated in front of Gal, halting her with her palm. “We’ve seen more than enough to know this is the real crown. That glow, that sheer power, are unmistakable.”

Benny and Teddy set their paws on Gal's back. 

“Are you okay?” Benny asked.

She nodded.

“So it is the real thing…” Teddy murmured, his eyes asparkle.

“Umm, has anyone ever—y'know, died with-with one of the crowns before?” Gal asked.

“No.” Arjona cupped her hands together, it reminded Gal of the fancier royals from the countries across the ocean, and of her mother. “Not in all of history since the crowns were created by your ancestors, has anyone died while wearing one.”

“Okay…so, maybe it's no big deal and this was just…bound to happen,” Gal said. “Be pretty stupid if I died all because of some old prophecy or destiny, or fate, or some such nonsense.”

Arjona's brows raised slowly. “Don't count out the possibility quite yet. There is one—”

The doors burst open. “Wichapi!” A desperate voice cried.

Gal turned around. “Teté!” She flew to her grandmother.

“Mahpi…” Arjona said, as if expecting her.

Gal came to her grandmother’s side and hugged, feeling her arm wrap around her. With renewed vigor, she looked to Arjona and said, “So, how about gettin’ us back to the livin’ world to see our family?”

Mahpi's grasp loosened. The high spirits and foxes looked worried.

Gal stepped away from her grandmother and huffed with an annoyed tone. “Okay, why do people keep actin’ weird when I say that?”

“Gal…” Mahpi knelt down. “There is no way for a spirit to return to the living world, except for once a year in October. You know that.” Her eyes went to the Lock Crown. “Is that…?” She looked to Arjona behind Gal, who must have nodded or something because Mahpi said, “And that's only if we figure out how to get the crown back.”

“But like, if we can get the crown back, then we can get me back, right?” Gal’s voice shook. “I-I only just got here, and I'm-I'm still so young, y’know? I have my whole life ahead of me!”

“That's not how it works, my love,” Mahpi said, reaching for Gal's shoulder but she backed away.

“Mahpi is right,” Arjona said. “The best we can hope for is to return the Lock Crown to the living world, so you and everyone else can visit once a year. As it has been for the last three centuries.”

Maybe if Gal didn't accept it, reality wouldn't either… She blew a dismissive razzberry through her lips. “I mean, with that attitude—”

“Do you think I haven't tried?” Mahpi snapped. The room echoed with her voice, then went silent.

Mahpi wetted her lips. “I-I'm sorry… That was…” She sighed. “I just… It’s hard for me too, Gal. I wish I could see you and everyone else more often. It's gotten so lonely ever since your grandfather passed to the Land of Peace. But I eventually had to come to terms with the truth, and find happiness where I can here.”

Gal wrinkled her nose tight. “Nothin’... and I mean nothin’ can replace the joy that I get from bein’ with my family.” She clenched her fists. “I need to find a way back, and that's that. I don't care what it takes. And I will never give up.”

Mahpi’s lips pulled inwards and shivered.

“As I was saying, there is perhaps one way to return the crown…” Arjona said. “And it involves an old prophecy.”

Gal swallowed, then turned around fast. “Well? Let's hear it.”

Arjona raised her brows with a serious face, as if to show her surprise for Gal's lack of respect. “Temper your expectations. This plan would require us to travel to the Spirit Wastes, the dark side of the Star Nation.”

Chapter Twelve | Nightmare

Garten strangled the life out of a New Machokian royal guard, watching the man reach fruitlessly at the vines squeezing around his neck until his face went pale and his arms limped.

Through his unholy connection with the vines, Garten felt every crack and break in the man's neck before he smiled and dropped him to the ground. The vines retreated beneath the brick street.

“There he is!” someone shouted from an alley. “Stop! You're under arrest for the murder of Queen Mahpi!”

A countless number of guards charged him, coming from all the surrounding alleys. Too many to fight off all at once.

Live to kill another day, he thought.

“C’mon, Fed! Let’s book it…” He called out for his brother, but he couldn’t find him. “Fed?”

The guards closed in. Garten ran to the next street, pushing past civilians and jumping over stalls and carts. A faint sepia light shimmered around the corner ahead, drawing him in with a strange, dreamlike allure.

He rushed into the gloomy light, which he now realized was a dimly glowing fog. The brick walls of the alley became narrower the further he passed through. He turned around to see the direction he had come from was now blocked by a wall.

“What the…?”

He followed an impossibly smooth curve of brick, until it straightened out again, leading to a small plaza with a short, thin tree at the center. The night sky was replaced by a low, misty ceiling. Old men and women in rags walked around aimlessly or sat on the ground and benches, muttering nonsense to themselves, as if heavily drugged. 

Garten glanced around at the old bags, tsking to himself, wishing they were sober. Drug addicts were no fun to beat up or kill because there was practically nothing of them left to break. Before he realized it, he’d made another turn into an open doorway and stepped into a grimy office lobby. In here, the misty ceiling was so low he could touch it if he reached up. The room smelled like moist carpet and Garten wiggled his nose, trying to get the rancid smell out before pinching it with his fingers.

There were elders in here too, but something was different about them. They twitched at every little dust particle in the air, and gasped at every movement he made. They were practically skin and bone, on the verge of death, muttering nonsense as the others had, but some of them were staring right at him.

A primal fear arose within Garten. He was beginning to realize he had made a mistake by coming here. But then he found himself walking up a short, brittle staircase. Each board creaked under his heavy footsteps, leading him up to a tight hallway.

He passed a woman holding a sign that said: Leave now. They are wanting.

Garten looked ahead and saw a misty plaza full of silhouettes of people, and something huge in the distance, obscured in the thick gloom. That area filled Garten with a gut-wrenching urge to leave.

He turned around and walked fast, passing the elders, bumping into some of them. Their numbers had increased significantly from mere seconds before. One woman in particular had deep, sunken black eyes and the most hungry, malicious smile he had ever seen in his life. This place rendered him helpless, powerless, overwhelmed, like a defenseless little kid.

He rushed down the creaky steps into the lobby area, where a short, decaying Oya woman with visible bone in many places grinned wide at him from a head that was hanging halfway off her neck. It was Queen Mahpi, the woman he had killed that day.

“Remember what happens to the ones who try to leave!” she laughed, and the other old men and women laughed. Some of them shrieked in painful terror.

The door leading out to the plaza shut in Garten's face.

​

*

​

Garten was in total darkness now. He could feel nothing, see nothing; everything was nothing. 

That nightmare he had just experienced was exactly that, none of it was real. He’d already killed Queen Mahpi over six years ago. But then, what was going on in the present?

He tried to recall his most recent memories, and then he remembered he and Fed lying around in their prison cell, until dark figures crept past the bars.

“You fellas ain't guards,” Garten had said, sitting up in his bed. Fed remained still, on the bunk above him.

The figures doubled back. These “fellas” weren't even human; their bodies were pitch black and caught no light. They were shaped like people, but that was about it as far as human qualities went.

“Who are you?” one of the smaller shadows said, its crackling voice like a snake from Hell.

Garten huffed. “Been in this dump so long, I forgot...” He made intense eye contact with the shadow, or at least where he thought its eyes were. 

“I'm just kiddin’!” Garten laughed. “Name's Garten. And uh, what about you, demon? Or whatever you are. You come to drag me down to Hell?”

“Who I am is irrelevant. All you need to know is that I am not your enemy.”

Garten scratched his warty nose, looking at the two larger shadow figures behind the smaller one. “Oh yeah? And uh, who am I to you, then?”

“A distraction,” it said.

Garten cracked his neck to the side. “You tryna break out of this place or something? Although, I can't say I remember seeing any grim reapers locked up in here.”

“I intend to break you out.”

“Oh-hoho.” Garten stood from his bed and strolled toward the bars. “Now you got my attention. But uh, what exactly do you need on my part, eh?”

“You catch on quick, inmate.”

“Come on, nothin's free in this world.”

The shadow looked like it inhaled, then said, “I need you to slaughter the royals.”

Garten burst out laughing. “On Star Ceremony night? You're-you're crazy!—Fed, this guy's crazy!” He looked up to Fed's bunk, where his huge brother faced the wall, breathing slowly and saying nothing.

“The reason me and my brother’re in this hellhole in the first place is ‘cause we did that exact thing on this exact night six years ago.”

The shadow turned to the others and said, “We found them.”

Loud cogs grinded together inside the walls of the cell as the metal bars split apart.

Fed finally jumped down from the bed with a heavy thud.

“What do you mean you found us?” Garten asked.

“You’re the ones who killed Queen Mahpi, right?” it said. “Tell me, why did you do it?”

“Why'd we kill the queen…?” Garten smirked, looked back at his brother then to the shadow again. “It's ‘cause we can't stand people like that…”

“”People like that”?” it said. “You mean the Oya?”

Garten shook his head no. “Nah…nah, I don't give a rat's ass about none o’ that. I'm talking about people who think they can't be hurt, think they're invincible…” He looked the shadow figures up and down. “Fellas like you.”

The main shadow let out an amused huff, then it and the others walked away.

Garten exchanged a glance with Fed, and they stepped out to the long, six-tiered prison block: the Gallery. The other inmates peered out of their cells, glancing back and forth at Garten and the shadow figures.

“What’s makin’ you think we’re not just gonna kill you fellas right here?” Garten said.

“Nothing,” the main shadow said, without stopping. “Feel free to take a shot at us, if you want.”

Garten chuckled. 

The shadow weightlessly stepped up the grated stairs that usually squealed when someone walked on them. It passed all the way up to the highest catwalk, overlooking all six tiers of cells.

“Which of you filthy freaks wants to get out of here and hurt the people that locked you up?” it shouted from the catwalk.

The room erupted in animalistic roars.

The shadow looked up at the window of the control room and raised its arm.

A loud steam whistle pierced Garten’s ears. Many of the cells began to open to the sound of grinding cogs. Dozens of violent criminals stepped out, looking like they were ready to hurt someone for little to no reason at all.

“We are releasing the Was'i prisoners only!” its voice echoed. “Don't worry, Oya people! Your time will come. We just need to make sure our plan goes smoothly first.”

“What plan?” an inmate asked.

“One you will bear witness to soon enough. All you must do is cause chaos in the city. Take revenge on those who imprisoned you here. But whatever you do, do not harm any Oya people. If I see so much as a hair harmed on any of them, you will not live to see the rest of your freedom.”

“Yeah? And why should we listen to you?” someone said. 

Garten had a feeling something was about to happen, and sure enough—a mustached tank of a man leaped from the second tier all the way up to the catwalk. He landed twenty or so feet away from the shadow and cracked his knuckles. The two stared at each other as the prisoners yelled things like, Tear ‘em apart! We don't need him now, kill him! 

Garten and Fed stayed quiet and watched as the shadow swung one arm over its head, grasped the upheld arm with its other hand and unleashed a rumbling black cloud that obscured the entire catwalk.

The prisoners murmured to each other, waiting for the cloud to clear. 

The mustached man stood tall as the cloud faded, then fell lifelessly to the ground with a crash. The inmates gasped in horror, while Garten let out an amused whistle.

“Now that I have proven my power,” the shadow said. “I expect I have earned your loyalty, or at least your fear.”

“Even with that power, you think you can keep tabs on all of us?” someone said.

Black, human-sized insects crawled out of the darkness of the cells and crept along the backs of the inmates. Garten, Fed, and the inmates attacked the monsters, but when their bodies fell apart they came back together as if unharmed, then the monsters retreated into the darkness.

“I see everything,” the shadow said. 

As he drifted in the nothingness, Garten in the present remembered how that display of power had made him feel. The attack on the mustached man was impressive, but the idea of an all-seeing demon watching his every move was what really shook him to his core. He couldn't remember the last time he had truly felt afraid.

"Now, go out there and ruin that god forsaken ceremony!” it had said. “And feel free to kill as many Was'i as you please.”

“What about the guards?” someone asked.

“They’re tied up around the prison, do whatever you want with them.”

“What about the women and children?” Garten asked. “Can we kill them too?”

“It makes no difference to me.”

If Garten had to limit his killings to the Was'i, he at least had felt some relief that women and children were free game.

“Even the royals?” someone else asked.

"Especially the royals,” it had said.

The rest of what occurred that night hit Garten's thoughts with an onslaught of pain. He finally remembered everything that had happened next. The people he slaughtered in the city, the little toddler princess he found, wanted to kill, but then her older sister ran after him and blasted him with that accursed crown, sending him crashing into a wall.

He remembered brief glimpses of Fed trying to wake him up, to keep him from dying, but there was nothing Garten could do as he had been dragged into the deep dark.

​

*

​

He woke with a start, his throat burning like acid. All around him were wolf-like shadows wrestling and gnawing at each other with predatory snouts full of black teeth. He was in what seemed to be a rocky cave, and there was a bright turquoise glowing object at the center of the blackness, shining a beam of light up to an opening miles high in the ceiling. Outside, there was a giant green cloud swirling over the cave. 

If this was another nightmare, it felt more real than the last one.

A massive hunched over shadow—far larger than the rest—stood before him, facing away. What scared him was that he hadn't noticed it until just now, despite its size.

“What…is this?” Garten shivered, his voice sounding unfamiliar; deeper, more gravelly, staticky, and his skin crawled as if covered in spiders with needles for legs. He looked at his body to see nothing but blackness and hound-like limbs with long claws.

The big shadow turned around, revealing its white void-like eyes that crackled violently. Its snout was full of black shapeless teeth, all wriggling as it slowly said, “This…is what you have been running from.” Each word carried with it a deep meaning and emphasis. This creature conveyed a sense of ancient, disturbed knowledge. “And now, you will be swallowed by it for eternity, or until you give yourself to the stone.”

The creature looked to the source of the turquoise glow: a small stone.

Garten was stricken by images of death, skulls, purple vines, and screams. Everything he had done in his life. The visions finally ended when he fell to his knees over a black puddle and saw his own reflection. He didn't look like himself, he had become one of the shadow wolves. A purple fire shaped like a long tongue scorched in his mouth, making him scream.

He felt the creature standing over him as he writhed and rolled on the ground.

“This is what being a coward gets you, Garten.”

The pain subsided, and Garten gazed up at the creature.

“What…what happened to me?!” he screamed. “What am I?!”

“Nothing you already were not when you were alive.”

“Where's Fed?!” Garten turned every which way. There was only the glow at the center, and darkness and violence. “Where's my brother?!”

The creature turned away and said, “Your brother is nothing. Nothing but pain.”

“Shut up! I wanna see my brother!”

“You are nothing. Nothing but desire.”

“How do I get outta here?!”

“There is no escaping yourself.”

The shadow wolves surrounded Garten.

“They long for fresh meat.”

Their mouths drooled with flames.

“Get away! I-I'll kill you! I'll kill every single one of you freaks!”

“Do not worry. They will not feast on you for long. Soon, light spirits will come for the stone. And you, too, shall have your fill, as fleeting as it may be.”

The shadows charged Garten. He swung his long claws at them, slashing their throats, but it only staggered them. They tackled him, tearing apart his shadow body and fighting one another over his taste.

“Welcome home.”

Chapter Thirteen | Choice

Lady Arjona returned to her seat and began to tell of all it would take to return the Lock Crown to the living world. “Deep within the Spirit Wastes, there can be found an ancient stone. The Bridge Stone, one of the Holy Trinity Stones that created the Star Nation itself.”

“I think I've heard of that,” Gal said. “My ancestors made the spirit crowns usin’ the other two stones, but they lost that Bridge Stone along the way, right?”

“More or less,” Arjona said.

“Is it…bad that the dark spirits have it?” Gal asked.

“They cannot harness its power. Its surface melts their bodies. They watch the stone from afar, lusting after a power they cannot wield, destroying anyone that gets near the stone.”

Gal swallowed dryly. “And…and we need to go there to send the crown back?”

Even Arjona looked nervous now, closing her eyes with a frown as she said, “I am afraid that is the only way. The Great Spirit itself once told of a day when the star roads would close, and only a member of the royal family could restore the connection between the two worlds.”

Benny grabbed his tail, stroking it nervously. “Gosh, I feel bad for the poor soul who’s got to make that trip.”

“Well, my granddaughter can't be the one it meant.” Mahpi nodded firmly.

“Don't be a fool,” one of the other female high spirits said from the top of the wall. “Who else could it be? The circumstances line up too well.”

“You wouldn't ask Gal to go?” Mahpi’s shoulders weakened.

“Unless we can find a way to remove the crown from her head and send someone else, this is the only way, according to the Great Spirit,” Arjona said.

Gal's body went numb as she recalled Mahpi’s stories of dark spirits. Sharp teeth, sharper cries, an insatiable hunger, and the barren land they resided in that was covered in a grey mist that poisoned and crippled light spirits.

“Why not just send someone else and bring the Bridge Stone back here to her?” Mahpi asked.

Arjona shook her head. “Removing the stone from the Wastes would mean the return of the Eternal War. Its presence there is the only thing keeping the dark and light sides of the Star Nation apart.” She took a breath. “No, if we are to do this, the crown must go to the stone.”

“Then as much as it pains me to say, we won't do it.” Mahpi crossed her arms. “Not if Gal has to go.”

Arjona sighed. “Ultimately, it’s up to the princess. We cannot force her to go or to stay.”

Gal wetted her lips. Was this really the end? Would she never be alive again? The Star Nation was nice and all, but her father and mother weren't here, nor were her cousins, her friends, Euphy, and Jan…

Mahpi scoffed. “I can make her stay.”

“Couldn’t we just…wait until she gets older, at least?” Teddy asked. “If her going really is the only way?”

“I don’t want her to go, ever.” Benny whimpered.

Everyone's distraught voices added to the onslaught of anxiety and noise in Gal's head. Her heart raced faster by the second.

“I will not risk my granddaughter’s only chance at life in the Star Nation,” Mahpi said. “And I will not put her at risk of suffering in that wasteland.”

The room erupted with opinions from the high spirits, the foxes, and Mahpi; brainstorming alternatives, disputing theories, legends, rumors.

Gal clamped her eyes shut, hoping to squeeze the noise out of her ears, but she knew there was only one way to answer this anxiety, this fear. She had known ever since she saw that shadow approaching the prison…

The only way things were going to get better was if she stopped being the happy-go-lucky Gal she had always been, always wanted to be, no matter how old she got. Now, she realized, this was the time to face the music, to do the sorts of things she never wanted to do. Throw her old self away and be more like—

“Let's try it!” she finally said.

Teddy's ear twitched. “Princess?”

Benny turned to her with worried, glimmering eyes.

“Let's try to take the crown off my head. If we can't make it work, then I'm goin’ to the Spirit Wastes,” she said nonchalantly, masking her fear.

Arjona raised her brows as the other high spirits glanced at one another.

Mahpi smirked, as if Gal had made a joke. “Don't even kid around about this, Gal.”

Gal shot a crass look at her. “Oh, I'm serious.”

Mahpi's face weakened, as if Gal had announced she was going to kill herself. “Gal, you have no idea what you're saying right now.”

Gal couldn't bear to see her grandmother like this, so she looked past the high spirits at the green light coming through the window.

“No, Teté. For once, I know exactly what I need to do.”

“Don't you do that. Don't go sounding like your mother on me.”

Gal snapped around to face her again. “What's so wrong with bein’ like my mama? Look at how she runs the country. I've tried not to look all these years ‘cause it was always so boring to me, but I know she's got her act together. I-I see that now, I really do. She knows when to face the music and do what it takes to get things done.”

Mahpi's eyes watered. “Now you really don't know what you're saying. If you knew half of what your mother did outside the public eye—”

“It's better than doin’ nothin’!” Gal said sharply.

Mahpi tried blinking away tears as she stepped toward Gal. “You're not thinking straight, dear—” She tried to grasp Gal's shoulder, but Gal hovered back.

“You…are not my mama. You don't get to tell me what to do.”

Mahpi's eyes opened wide with fury. “I gave birth to your mother! I have seniority over the both of you!”

“Guys…” Benny stroked his tail fast.

“And I am Princess Gal of New Machoká! It’s my duty to make my people safe and happy! And if it’s within my power to put things back to the way they were—then, gosh darnit I'm gonna do it.”

Mahpi shook her head. “You're just a little girl.”

“Please stop fighting…” Benny whined, stroking his tail even faster.

“Then stop me.” Gal squared her shoulders and marched toward Mahpi. “If I'm such a helpless little thing, stop me.”

Mahpi blocked her, then Gal slipped fast between her legs and, before Mahpi turned, ran to and stood by the big door.

“See?” Gal said, hands proud on her hips. “Ain't nothin’ can catch me.”

Mahpi's lips quivered, making a pang of guilt shoot through Gal.

“I know you don't like it, but this…” Gal lifted her chin and narrowed her eyes at the green sky outside. “This is what I gotta do.”

Mahpi let out a dejected laugh. “You're starting to look like her too…” She sighed. “Fine, but I'm going with you.”

“No you ain't—” Gal tried to say.

“Very well, then,” Arjona said as she hovered to the center of the room. “If we cannot find a way to remove the crown from the princess’ head, then we will make preparations for an excursion to the Spirit Wastes”

“I-I'm going too!” Benny let go of his tail and shot over to Gal's side.

“Ben!” Teddy yelped, reaching for his brother.

“Oh, no. I couldn’t ask you guys to do all that,” Gal said.

Benny shrugged. “I said I wanted to spend time with my new friend. I’m sticking to that, no matter where she goes.”

Gal was at a loss for words and couldn't help but smile.

Teddy hovered with a hunch next to Benny. “That means I need to go too, y’know…”

“Oh, you're absolutely going with me!” Benny said. “It’s gonna be scary out there.”

Gal chucked lightly, almost forgetting what they were getting themselves into.

“Ha-hang on,” Mahpi said. “Surely you’re sending a big army with us?”

“A large force would only draw more dark spirits,” Arjona said.

“A stealth mission!” Benny made embarrassingly sloppy martial arts poses.

“Umm…yes,” Arjona said. “A stealth mission.”

“Okay, so…who else is goin’?” Gal asked.

“We will send a small, capable group…” Arjona glanced at Teddy and Benny with a tired frown. “And the yoki foxes, as it would seem. Some of our best soldiers will go, and you will need willing fairies to light the way once you reach the Wastes. As well as spriggans, for their experience fighting the dark spirits.”

“Oh, Oh! Let's bring Clio and her fairy pals!” Benny hopped. “She’s always raring for an adventure!”

“You may go to the forest whenever you wish and choose your companions, should we fail to remove the crown, and this excursion indeed involve you, Princess,” Arjona said.

“Well…” Mahpi shook her head wryly. “That’s that, then.” She looked at the high spirits, but Gal could tell she was speaking to her. “I hope you're happy.”

The council stood from their seats.

“Remember,” Arjona said, “this is the most we can do on this side. The royal family in the living world still has to recover the Key Crown, if we are to restore the connection.”

“Mama can do it!” Gal said. “She’s gonna kick butt till everything’s back to normal, and so am I.”

Teddy laughed nervously, almost like he was about to cry. “I'm gonna die…again.”

“Be warned, Princess,” Arjona said. “You will face many dangerous and evil things, but none as terrifying as the truth you refuse to accept.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Gal said. “I'm done ignorin’ scary things.”

Arjona glared coldly. “That…remains to be seen.”

Chapter Fourteen | Eedie

Carl Fitzgerald plucked a rapid, somber tune on his spirit wood guitar, hovering above his desk, lying in the musty air of his bedroom. His eyes were shut as he drifted in the lifetime of fears, love, hatred, triumphs, and regrets in his head, trying to figure out the mystery that none of those experiences had solved: the mystery of himself.

There was a clatter in the barracks outside his room. He set a palm over the strings to silence them. He heard his spirit soldiers rushing to the ground to stand at attention, likely for someone important. He hung the guitar on the wall and peeked out the blinds to see every soldier in the barracks facing the entrance, where Eden Arjona hovered in the doorway. 

“Is General Fitzgerald here?” she asked, as he opened his door. Her glowing proper posture was surrounded by the green light shining from outside.

Carl leaned against the doorframe. “I don't know, who's askin’?” He smiled at her and she blinked fast when she saw him. 

“At ease, people,” he said.

The soldiers returned to do whatever it was they were doing, whether that was working out in the gym, playing cards, music, eating, chatting. It was an off day for everyone who wasn't on guard duty for the city, so no drills today.

Eden bashfully tucked some of her hair behind her ear as she approached Carl, and said, “A word?”

He motioned her into his room.

She hovered inside as he strapped himself to his desk chair with a seat tether. He offered her the seat across from him, but she refused.

“Well, Eedie, to what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked.

“Don't call me that,” she said, looking down on him, “it's degrading.”

He frowned. “It didn't used to be…”

“General Fitzgerald, you have more than proven your worth as a warrior, and as a protector of this realm.”

He laughed lightly. “No need to butter me up, Eedie. Just say what you need.”

“That's not what I'm—!” Her cheeks flushed bright red, even through her spirit glow.” She sighed. “I'll get right to the point. It has been a long time since you, or anyone, has journeyed to the Wastes, but the time has come once again to face the evil there.”

A pang of foreboding doom hit Carl's heart. He stared at the collection of guitar picks on his desk. “I had a feelin’ it'd be somethin’ like that. It's also been a “long time” since you've come to visit.” 

He looked at her. “You can come see me anytime, y'know. For anything, even just to talk.” His eyes shifted to the wall as he imagined the temple and the high council. “I know those other high spirits can't be great company.”

“I am not concerned about my own well being,” she said, directing his attention back to her serious face.

He laughed. “Man, that sounds like somethin’ young me woulda said, back when I was all business, and you were… Well, you were Eedie. We could get some of that back, y’know. If you only showed up once in a while.” Memories of their days at the palace filled his head. “Mahpi misses you too, the old you.”

Eden blinked once, slowly. “Back to the topic at hand…” 

She told him everything about the princess, the crown stuck on her head, and the plan to restore the connection. “...And I do not expect we can remove it from her head. The Great Spirit once said as much.”

Carl nodded. “The Bridge Stone…” He narrowed his brows at her. “And uh, you're just goin’ to let that little princess go into the Wastes for…what? A slim chance at gettin’ things back to normal?”

She sighed. “You were always like this...”

He chuckled. “I’m afraid to ask what that’s supposed to mean.”

“It means it is possible to take back that which has been stolen from you.”

Carl pushed his tongue to the side of his mouth. “Uh-huh, I know it is.” He straightened his face and leaned over his desk at her. “But what about the things you sacrifice along the way?” He looked her up and down. “You’re…we’re livin’ proof of that.”

“And look at how our people have prospered,” she said, “lived in peace for all these years.”

Carl reclined in his seat. 

“Tomorrow morning, I will gather the citizens and tell them of the closing of the star roads—though no doubt that news has already spread, with all the human spirits returning. And I will assure them that we have a plan to restore the connection.”

“But no details?”

“Yes.”

Carl nodded. “Right. Wouldn't want any undesirables interferin’...” He unbuckled his tether and rose from the chair. “Anythin’ else I need to know about? If not, I'll get myself ready—”

“You are not going.”

“What?”

“I need you to protect the city. I will go in your stead.”

“You're…jokin’, right? Is the young, humorous Eedie I fell in love with way back when finally showin’ herself again?”

“No, I’m serious.”

Carl scoffed. “What, you think I'm gonna let you go there in my place? I'm flattered, it means you still have a soul, but hell no.”

“Carl, please—”

“Listen to me…” He floated above his desk. “If I'm not the one leadin’ this operation, it's not happenin’.”

Eden looked away as her upper lip twitched.

“You’re a tough old cookie, I know that, but I've actually been to the Wastes…oh! That's what you were tryin’ to do earlier. You were gonna say somethin’ along the lines of I know you've been there, but I need to go.”

She said nothing.

“Yeah, see I always knew how to read your mind. It's weird how I can do that, isn't i—”

“Okay, fine.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Just…”

He smiled, anticipating kind words such as:

Be safe. 

I love you, Carl. 

Call me Eedie again, I actually miss that name.

“Do not let the princess, Mahpi, or anyone come to harm.”

He almost rolled his eyes, disappointed she didn't say what he was hoping. But he didn't hate that response either.

Carl raised his brows and smirked. “Well, I saw a little bit of her there.”

“What?”

“The old you. I just seen the tiniest hint of that sweet, caring girl from the old days.”

Her cheeks flushed again. “Y-you are seeing things. I am no longer who you knew back then.”

Carl smiled. “The more you change, the less you do… This mission really is that important to you, isn't it?”

“It’s for the people.”

“It always is.” Carl rubbed the back of his neck. “Okay, then. Just don’t frighten my soldiers too much while I’m gone.”

She nodded once. “Very well, then.”

“But on one condition.”

“What?”

Carl floated past his desk, and came close to her side. “Have dinner with us when I get back. Me and Mahpi.”

She blinked fast, avoiding eye contact. “I will…see if I have the time.”

He shrugged. “It's a start.”

Chapter Fifteen | Adventurers

 

Chapter Sixteen | Trial and Error

 

Chapter Seventeen | Long Walks

 

Chapter Eighteen | The Stars

 

Chapter Nineteen | Only Strings

 

Chapter Twenty | Split Paths

 

Chapter Twenty One | This is Gonna Work

 

​