Chapter Two

She’d run straight home and locked the door behind her, a little breathless from the exertion. She took a moment to stand by the door and catch her breath, then turned and surveyed the room.

She was standing in the kitchen of their dingy little ground-level apartment. There was some kind of weird mold on the ceiling that she had never been able to scrub off, and the walls were covered in fading patterns of roses. In the middle was a small card table with four wooden chairs around it, dirty dishes heaped up carelessly in the center. Ali sighed and rolled up her sleeves, preparing to dump the dishes in the sink and wash them.

Then there was a loud SHRIEK from outside, accompanied by an unearthly wailing noise. Ali’s heart nearly leaped out of her throat, and with a strangled gasp she ran to the window and looked out.

She didn’t know what she was expecting- after the day she’d had, it could have been anything- but she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that it was only a cop car, sirens blasting as it raced down the street. A police car was nothing unusual here, and she shook her head at her own silliness as she turned back to the sink.

It wasn’t until after her mother and stepfather returned from work, after her sister Mary got home from her job at the supermarket, after dinner was eaten in tense silence, and the dishes done yet again, that Ali escaped to her room and finally relaxed.

She laid down on the bed and opened her journal, preparing to write down the day’s strange events, and reached into her pocket for a pen. There was nothing in there. Frowning, she tried the other, and found only a round, flat object, like a quarter, but larger. She took it out to get a better look and her heart nearly stopped.

It was the coin the weird boy had thought she had dropped. Warm and heavy in her hand, it shone even in the dim light of her bedside lamp. That’s real gold, she thought to herself excitedly, feeling its weight. Then she realized- The boy had held it out to her, but she ran without taking it.

She had never picked it up.

Somehow, after all that had happened to her, she wasn’t surprised to find that her arm had healed almost completely while she slept. Weaver’s “knack for making people feel better” was obviously more than a good knowledge of medicine.

Fearing that the now-healed arm was still too weak to take her weight, Ali pushed herself up on to her other elbow. She was still in the alleyway, laying on the soft pad Excalibur had left her on last night, although there were no longer so many people around. The gold coin was still clutched in her fist.

There was a woman, blonde hair cut short and sticking out at crazy angles, leaning over her. She grinned crazily at Ali and said, “Hey, red cat.” At least, that was what Ali heard. She wasn’t sure it was what the woman had said, because it made no sense. “What?” She said.

The woman pointed at herself. “Luna.” She said, and winked. Then, reaching out to lift a single lock of Ali’s wavy red hair, she said again, “Red cat.” Or maybe, Ali realized, she had said, “Red Katt.” Katt was Ali’s name- Alison Katt. Furthermore, in her dreams Ali sometimes turned into a red cat. It wouldn’t surprise her at all if this woman, Luna, knew that. It had been that kind of week.

Then Luna said something even weirder: “The Black Cat, we had. The Red Cat, we found. Where is your little kitten, luv? Where is the White Cat?” Her eyes, one a startlingly pale blue and the other a brownish green, like dirty jade, seemed to bore into Ali’s eyes.

Then a heavy hand clamped down on Luna’s shoulder. “Leave the kiddo alone, Loon,” a gruff male voice said. “She’s had a tough enough time.”

“Rough times, indeed, rough times ahead.” Luna said, nodding absently as she rose to her feet. Her eyes suddenly seemed unfocused, not clear with understanding as they had been a moment ago. The man clapped her on the shoulder, then squatted down so his face was near Ali’s. He held out his hand.

“I’m the Green Man,” he said. “Well, they call me that, anyway.” His voice was low and gravely, and his face was partially hidden by a long, mostly gray beard. Ali guessed he was about sixty. His brown eyes were small, but bright and kind.

“I’m Alison- call me Ali,” she said, shaking his hand. She had to shift slightly to prevent herself from falling over.

He chuckled. “Won’t be Ali for long, that’s my guess,” he said. “Names tend not to stick ‘round here.”

“Is that why Excalibur is named after a mythical sword?” Ali asked dryly. The Green Man grinned, said, “Maybe,” and stood up.

“Things are strange here, as you know,” he said, giving her a somber look. “Don’t worry. We take care of our own. You’ll be safe with us. Oh, and,” he added as he was about to go, “Don’t pay much heed to Luna. She’s batty.”

Ali watch him walk off and leave the same way she’d come in last night. Then she sighed and lay back down again. There really wasn’t much point in getting up until she got to see Excalibur again. They needed to talk.

That’s what she’d been thinking that night she found the coin, too. Was it only a week ago? It felt like months.

After trying for a while, unsuccessfully, to convince herself there was a reasonable way the coin could have ended up in her pocket, she decided to find the weird boy with the purple eyes and demand that he explain what was going on. Of course, it could be some kind of trap, to lure her away from safety. She’d come armed. Should she go now? Yes, she thought, excited by the prospect of adventure. Perhaps it was a discussion made too hastily, but she gave it no further thought.

Jumping out of bed, she crept down the hall to the kitchen, where she took a large knife and shoved it under her waistband. The metal blade lay cool against her skin, and she shivered. Just in case something happened and she needed a taxi, or food, or something, she took $50 from the tea box where her stepfather hid money. What an idiot- he thought no one would find it there, even though both his stepdaughters regularly drank tea. She stuffed it down her sock, figuring it would be safe from pickpockets there. Then she opened the kitchen door slowly, wincing as it creaked, and slipped out into the night.

It was as she jogged across the street and turned a corner that she realized, with great excitement, that she did not have to go back. Once this business with the coin was settled, she could use her money to pay for someplace to spend the night, and in the morning she could apply for a job somewhere like a unimart, where they wouldn’t care that she was only 14 and had no where to stay. It was fun to think about, even though she knew in the back of her mind that she wouldn’t have the guts to go through with it.

She stopped at the entrance to the skinny little alley where she’d seen the boy twice before. No one was there, although a couple of scantily clad girls leaned against the wall across the street from her. She ignored them, and, heart pounding, she peered into the dark and silent alley.

She could see the outline of a dumpster, and beside it a pile of cardboard boxes. Moonlight glinted off the beer bottles strewn on the paving. Behind the dumpster, the alley was swallowed in darkness.

Swallowing hard and mustering her courage, Ali ignored the little voice frantically screaming that she was going to get herself mugged and killed, and stepped into the alley. She pulled out the kitchen knife just in case and held it ahead of her, her hand shaking. Though she was scared, she also felt oddly like she was being called, like there was something fantastic ahead of her, just waiting to be discovered. Licking her lips, she walked forward, toward the darkness beyond the dumpster.

The alley ended. It didn’t end in a wall or a fence, it simply- stopped. There was no paving ahead of her, only shadowy darkness with two tall walls on either side, and as she gaped in amazement at the abyss in front of her, Ali suddenly felt a presence behind her.

Whirling around in panic, she found herself facing an enormous creature. It resembled a human, but couldn’t possibly have been. Its eyes glowed orange with malice from within a small, round head. The head was attactched to a massive torso, supported by two thick, short legs. It supported most of its weight on its muscular arms, like a gorilla.

“Troll,” Ali whispered in shock as she stared at it. Whether you read fairy tales or not- and Ali did, constantly- you’d know as soon as you saw it that it was a troll. There was no other name that could possibly apply.

It sneered at her, its glowing eyes narrowing with wicked delight, and swung one massive fist up in the air. It seemed to swing back down in slow motion, headed straight for Ali’s face, but she couldn’t move. The force of the blow sent her flying, and she kept on flying- down, down into the dark, endless pit.