Alright, I know this chapter is long and kinda confusing, but I must confess, you never would have expected this to happen eh? This was in my mind from the first day I started this story well over a year ago now. Enjoy!

Chapter 30

What was only a few months over in Mossflower and Redwall amounted to years in the real world, and things had changed, but my mother's property had not. I walked out of the trio of trees and see Spearpaw looking about him; his hares were also looking about with the same wonderment on their faces. I tapped Spearpaw on the shoulder and he looked back. "Where are we? What have you done?"

I smiled and said, "I'll explain later, right now we need to find the others. I told them to go and hide in these woods once they got here."

Spearpaw nodded, "Okay, but I was just looking around and I can hear birds, but I can't see where they are but usually they're obvious."

"Well, there is a few things I should let you and the others know, c'mon, lets find them and I can tell you all what. As for shelter, I got some prime shelter setup and waiting. Lets meet back here in ten minutes."

"Ok."

With that, the two groups separated and went off in different directions, about ten minutes later thee groups returned, and everybeast was now accounted for, Glen, Liz, Sister Elm, Darkslash, and five others from the group sent to find the horde were now accounted for, Wyatt got Liz to stand next to him for the orientation. "Well, here's our situation, on the other side of those three trees, a horde of vermin are located, here, we have ourselves, and honestly, only I know the area. We are no longer in Mossflower Country; we are in the state of Maine in the country of the United States of America. These woods are my part of my backyard, some other things you should know is this, things are different here, take a moment to listen to nature, you may hear birds yes, but unlike in Mossflower, they're very small and most unlikely in any position to harm you, maybe peck out your eyes but that's about it. Another thing is this, you should not reveal yourselves to any others of my kind, creatures of your size are unheard of.."

A mouse interrupted, "What do you mean 'unheard of'?"

"Let me put it in a simple form, mice, like yourself, are a lot smaller, and not as civilized as you would like."

"What?"

"A mouse here is only at best eight inches long, three inches tall and two inches wide, squirrels aren't much bigger, as for hares, you're bigger than them, and of course the biggest is badgers, at least out of this group. Humans are the dominant species here but unlike me and Liz here, they can't communicate, it took me a good two months to learn how to speak properly."

A curious hare looked about then said, "Is that all?"

"Well, there is one other thing, unlike Mossflower, Redwall, and Salamandastron, technology has evolved for my kind over the last few hundred years, swords, and pikes are a thing of the past, but I will not let you use our newest weaponry, it would be a big mistake to do so. So with that out of the way, lets get to my home."

With a bunch of muttering amongst those in the group, they all followed Wyatt, like one big game of follow the leader.

After five minutes of walking, the questions started to flood in, 'What did he mean by backyard?' I tried to answer them as best as I could, "What I mean by 'backyard' is my home is on a set amount of land that my mother owns, in this case it is ten acres thereabouts. A decent amount of land actually. But enough of that we're here. It had been awhile since Liz had seen the house; it had been even longer for Wyatt, the others just looked at it, staring at the building, it was a somewhat simple home, a log cabin with a sound concrete foundation and two porches one in front and one in back, two doors lead into the building from the porches, the front porch with a overhead roof with railings, the back with just railings. A wood bilco can be seen on the building's west side, a clothesline separate from the building was located on the east, a walk wall can be seen not far from the building's north side, separating the higher ground which the building lay on from the front yard and the driveway leading down to the side road which led to the main road. Everyone gathered in the front yard, a tall metal flagpole in front of them. I turned to face them, "Well, as I said, things are different, welcome to my home, till I ended up in Mossflower, I lived here, now if I can find my key..." Rummaging through the bag I looked for the set of keys I placed in there in case I ever needed it, finding it, I nod to Liz, Glen, Darkslash, Spearpaw and Sister Elm, standing behind me, I insert the key into the keyhole, and opened the door.

The inside was fairly organized and clean, the kitchen laid to the left, the entryway in front of them, Wyatt led them to the living room located on the buildings west side; a spacious room with many chairs and a couple couches, a t.v. located in the focal point of the chairs and couches, I bade them sit in the various chairs. "Well, what do we do about this?"

Glen echoed, "Do about what?"

"Where am I going to place you all? I only know of this place to have beds for seven, but there's about a score of us, what do you suggest we should do? Two of the beds sleep two and the others are all single beds, now if there were a couple couples, that would be fine, but that leaves thirteen without beds, now I could put them on the floor, but I'd run out of floor, what do you think?"

Spearpaw spoke up, "Well we could place them outside, but they'd be in the open."

"Bad idea, they could be seen from the air."

"Seen from the air? Your species can't fly!"

"No, but we have invented a machine that does that, bad idea, especially if the police see them, they'd call animal control and then we'd be in real trouble, and I don't think I could explain it to them."

"Why not?"

"Well, when Liz came through and met me at Redwall, she told me that I was declared dead. Dead men, don't go explaining things like this to the authorities."

Glen cut in, "I guess so but what is authorities?"

"I'm glad you asked Glen, the authorities are the police, those being people who are trained to uphold the law. They're easy to spot though; they wear black uniforms with gold looking badges on them, same for their matching hat. It's not a good idea to get on their bad side, especially all of you; the language barrier alone is too big of a handicap. But enough of that let me give you all a tour of the house."

I started off the tour with going downstairs, showing them the utility room, the furnace room, the game room, and my sister and mother's bedrooms; I then showed them to my room, when I opened the door I was amazed to see that it was the same way I left it, right down to the messy bed covers. After I showed them my room, I went on to the upstairs, showing them of course the living room, the kitchen, the entryway, the laundry room, the dining room and finally the bathroom, explaining each room in detail, what some items do or how they're used. Finishing up the tour, I had them go and sit down in the living room again.

The other fourteen creatures were still waiting outside, and were starting to become a bit loud, it was now three o'clock and they hadn't eaten yet, "What's going on in there?" complained Rowan, "And when are we going to get fed, and more importantly, what's this place?"

"Alright, everybeast, here's the situation, we're no longer in Mossflower for one...."

"What? Where are we then?" cried out one mouse.

"Settle down, settle down, and let me explain..."

A young female hare, more fidgety then the rest of her group spoke out, "You'd bally well explain, creature thingummy!"

"To explain, let me tell you of how I got into Mossflower to begin with, one day I was walking through the woods and I went through some trees and ended up in the middle of a battle...."

Meanwhile Sister Elm was looking around and saw a bookshelf with some photo albums, and some books, upon closer inspection, all of the books were related to the Triss book that Wyatt had, but these had different titles such as Salamandastron, and Marlfox, taking one of the books down, she started to leaf through it and saw that it was all in the same kind of type that Triss was in. Rummaging about the shelf, she also found a few small books, and thin books, one of these had a pull out map of the Mossflower country and beyond, another book was velvet covered and had a picture of Redwall on an inner cover, this must be some kind of journal because all the pages were blank except the very first one, again in the same writing as Triss. She made a small stack of the books, one of the large ones, one of the smaller ones, and the one with the map in it. Liz saw what she was doing and walked over to her, "What are you doing?"

Sister Elm smiled and said, "When Wyatt was at the abbey, he had a book with him, and it was a very detailed account of the adventures of a sword maiden from long ago. He said he had more in his home; these must be the ones he was talking about. I had made a translation paper in my spare time, one of the lines in the book he had with him had a script that we had a copy of, and I was able to translate the text in that book. I remember some of the words, but some of these are different, I plan on studying them further when I have the chance."

"Oh, well I'm sure that you will enjoy the experience, I can help you if you want me to."

"That's alright, I want this to be an adventure, no shortcuts mind you."

"Don't let it get in the way of other things alright?"

"I won't."

Meanwhile Wyatt just finished telling his story, "The trees I am talking about was in Spearpaw's camp, and now, we are at my house. Well, any questions?"

An officious looking hare stepped forward and spoke aloud, "Are you trying to tell me, that we went from one place to another and now we're at your house which to me is something I've never seen before, and this is all real?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I'm telling you, and you are?"

"Sergeant Barkpaw; I train the new recruits under Spearpaw doncha know, wot wot."

"Well at least some authority is present, would you all please form up into a line, you'll all be given a tour of the building and a quick explanation of some of the items within."

"Alright you sloppy lot, form up here, prepare to march, and....march!"

The fourteen beasts walked slowly into the building and the tour began.