A/N: (Yes, I know I’m a little late.........) You guys didn’t review!! My delicate psyche is shattered! Goodbye, cruel world! -leaps off cliff-

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Chris and Candy, once more unshakable, left Adrian, Kyaku and I and returned to the closet, pointing out that we couldn’t leave the quilts and whatnot there. They shortly returned with everyone’s candy.

There was an awkward silence, in which the twins left for the movie.

“Maybe we can catch the end of it,” Candy joked weakly.

“And be the hecklers. Yes,” Chris agreed.

Adrian grabbed his bag of candy and began munching away at Smarties, Tootsie Rolls, and Laffy Taffy. I put my sweets away, wondering how he could be so ravenous for junk food; I wasn’t in the least hungry.

Kyaku took her bag and set it on the bed, then curled up next to me and closed her eyes. I couldn’t tell if she was asleep or not, but I hoped she was. It might be better.

The room was silent; neither Adrian nor I spoke at all. I could tell his was just as deep in his thoughts as I was in mine.

I think I now understood why Lita hadn’t wanted me to go in the garden. He had known there was something there. Why hadn’t he warned me?? Guiltily, I shifted slightly. Lita HAD warned me, in a semi-backwards way. He had told me not go to in the garden, but he hadn’t given specific reasons why not to. Why hadn’t he told me? Did he not think he could trust me?

I shook my head absent-mindedly, shoving the thought away. Kyaku stirred and muttered, breaking the silence. Sitting up, she stood up, clutching her bag, and headed towards the door, mumbling, “I’d better go to my room.......” She shut the door behind her gently. “Happy Halloween.”

Adrian nodded slowly, but made no move to get up; he stared into space instead, movements arrested.

I was convinced that I no longer looked exactly like Mimi, due to my crashing through the dirty plants; Adrian confirmed this. His clothing was slightly torn, his hair mussed; I was probably off worse. And my belief had affected him, too; the blue was coming out of his hair, slowly.

“Adrian, you should probably go,” I pointed out.

He nodded again, eyes refocusing. Blinking a couple of times, he got up and left. “Right. Happy Halloween.”

“Happy Halloween.”

I needed to bathe, badly. One feature of my room that I neglected to mention earlier was that it had it’s own bathroom. It’s small, but it works, so it’s good. I think everyone has their own. Shooing Adrian from my room, my changed out of my outfit and took a bath.

As I got into bed, I thought about what had happened today. It started out wonderful, but I guess it’s true that all good things must come to and end. And boy, what an end they had come to.

There was a clock on my bedside table with glowing red numbers, and these numbers glowed even when the light was on. Which it was; I didn’t dare turn it off. Instead, I pulled The Phantom Tollbooth from under my pillow and, since I had two chapters to go, finished it.

I knew it was fiction, but I wondered if the Phantom Tollbooth would ever show up in MY room. My life certainly couldn’t get any stranger than it already was, right? And it would be one heck of an adventure, which, after a moments thinking, didn’t seem as appealing as it might have been yesterday.

A lot of yesterday seems less appealing, but there’s nothing I can do about it, now is there? Turning the light off, I snuggled down under the covers and fell asleep in an astonishingly fast amount of time.

I’m standing in that not-London place again, and, again, Lita comes charging out of the mist.

“I told you not to go into the garden!!!”

“Shut up!” I yelled, surprising both him and me. “Yeah, you did. Why the hell didn’t you tell me what was in there??”

“Nothing’s in the garden!” he yelled back, startling me. “Nothing but that damn stone cat! It’s not what’s in the garden, it’s what can find you if YOU are!”

Shocked, I blinked. “What?”

My Guardian sighed and, closing his eyes, rubbed his temples. He looked so much like Dennis that I was almost tempted to laugh; almost, but not quite. Finally, he and I had both calmed down considerably, and he replied, “There are protections on Analgesia, all throughout the building. But they aren’t outside it, and your power is uncontrolled enough that anyone looking for it can find it if it isn’t shielded. When you went into the garden, you left the protections.”

“Oh.” This was much different than what I expected. “Then.........who was looking for us?”

He shrugged. “Not sure. Could’ve been anyone.”

“You don’t know?” My voice was incredulous.

“Dammit, Sophia, I’m not omnipotent! I don’t know everything!” He sounded angry and, oddly enough, slightly hurt.

Ashamed, I apologized. “Sorry. It’s just.........you watch over me all the time. Shouldn’t you know who attacked us?”

He turned and began pacing, hands clasped behind his back. “That’s what annoys me,” he replied, frustrated. “I SHOULD know who attacked you, but I DON’T. Whoever it was, they have very strong protections.”

“Like magic or something?”

He glanced at me. “Nonsense. In this world, there’s no such thing as magic. They’re either using technology, or some other power. Most likely it’s a Territory,” he finished, the last sentence muttered more to himself than to me.

“Territory?” It was like IT in A Wrinkle in Time; I somehow knew it was capitalized, like it was written down. And like the IT in the story, the word gave me shivers. “What’s that?”

“Never you mind.” He flapped a hand at me. “It’s nothing. Just don’t go in the garden again.”

“Lita?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you see what happened to us?” He nodded. “Well, what did it mean by the whole ‘you’re too young’ thing? Does that mean it’s going to come back or something when we’re older?”

He looked at me, face blank.

“Maybe, Sophia. Maybe, and maybe not. A person can never really be sure about the future, even when it seems inevitable that something’s going to happen. That......... thing.........may have meant that your powers weren’t fully blossomed yet, or it underestimated you and thought that they hadn’t blossomed at all; you may be too young for what it needs right now. Or perhaps you’re just too young for its liking. On the other hand---”

“You have five fingers,” I quipped. He sneered at me.

“Ha, ha. It may just have been surprised at your age, you know. If that was the case, you’re lucky it didn’t just sweep you off to Neverland or wherever the hell it was going to take you.”

“If it was going to take us at all,” I pointed out. “It said ‘I’d take you now, but you’re too young’.”

“Which reinforces the ‘too young for its needs’ theory. Look, Sophia, be careful in the future. Do everything you can to hone your power, but don’t let the adults know about it.” He turned to leave.

“Wait!”

“What?”

“Is this place London?” I asked. He smiled and shook his head.

“You can’t get to London, not just sleeping. This is like Limbo, the Place Between. Now, off to bed with you.”

He flapped his hands, as if to shoo me away, and I sat up in bed, blinking in the darkness. I guess I had a lot of practice ahead of me, but I was just too tired to think. Flopping back down and snuggling into the covers, I told myself, ‘Tomorrow.’