Fantasy Chapter 8: Why I Should Have Taken the Train, a sailor moon fanfic

Author's Note: Hi there again. So, as promised, here's more fic. In fact, a lot more fic. Wow, is this story long! Gee whiz, how do you people have time to read this thing? ;) Apologies again for any possible typos and I hope you enjoy.

Book Six: Why I Should Have Taken the Train

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The dumbfounded patrons stared at us, many displaying bits of masticated chicken in their opened mouths. Mamoru looked nearly as shocked. I don't think he realized that he was naked. Someone behind me cleared his throat. I had heard that reflexive, nervous gesture far too many times before in my previous flirtation with minimum wage employment not to recognize it now. Indeed, I turned around to face my former nemesis almost by compulsion. Mamoru followed suit, and in the corner of my eye I saw the expression on his face change. It was subtle, he had never been one to display any emotion he didn't have to, but I knew that Mamoru had just realized his less than desirable state of dress. Despite everything, I could not keep a smile from my face. Perhaps there was such a thing as cosmic justice, after all. I met Harvey's shocked gaze unflinchingly.

"A...Serena?" Harvey said. "What the hell? Why are you...who is that...how did you..." He trailed off. I could see him push his questions away for later. He turned momentarily away from the two of us, and raised his hands placatingly.

"Don't worry folks," he said in a voice I'm sure he meant to be reassuring. His beady eyes darted back and forth, and his jowls quivered with the effort it took him to smile. "These are my..."

I smiled, suddenly not caring at all what these people thought of us.

"We were at a wild party," I said, my voice positively laden with sarcasm. "It is Halloween, isn't it?" Well, it was a better method of learning the date than asking who was president, at any rate.

"Halloween?" Harvey said. "It was two days ago."

"Well, see what I mean?" I smiled and leaned into Mamoru. "It was a wild party."

A twenty-something guy sitting to my left let off a long whistle. "You can invite me to your parties any time, sister."

His voice broke the strange spell of silence that had surrounded us. The crowded restaurant suddenly erupted in a buzz of noise, prudish whispers mingling with appreciative laughter. Quite a few females eyed Mamoru with more than passing curiosity. Harvey looked around in horror, and I could see him wondering what this event would do to his patronage. A number of female pedestrians had crowded the yellow tinted windows, each clamoring for a better view of Mamoru. Harvey cursed behind me and then grabbed both of us by the elbow and dragged us into his back office.

He slammed the door and started pacing in front of the desk. After a moment, Mamoru and I sat down. Mamoru looked so uncomfortable that I began to feel sorry for him. I reached over and held his hand.

"Don't worry, we'll get out of here soon," I whispered, but he just looked at me blankly. I stared back, dawning realization making my stomach clench.

"Oh my God, Mamoru, please tell me that you speak English," I said. His almost panicked expression told me all I needed to know.

"Harvey," I said, and he stopped in mid-pace. "You have got to help us."

"Help you? After what you did? I'm probably going to get shut down! No one will want to eat here anymore! I'm ruined!"

"Oh, don't overreact. If I know this city, you'll probably have more business in the next month than you can handle. You know it too. We've actually helped you immeasurably. You ought to thank us. Go look outside and tell me if this place isn't crowded." Harvey gave me an appraising look, and poked his head outside the office door. He stood there a minute and then returned to face me, a smile dimpling his heavy cheeks.

"You're right. Imagine that. Well, I suppose I can do something. I must admit this is rather...strange, Serena. Why did you just show up here after two months, anyway? And...tell me I'm crazy, but it looked to me like you two just dropped out of thin air..."

I laughed nervously, and ran my hand through my tangled hair. "Yeah, well...you can never be sure of your eyes these days, can you? We just walked in through the doors like every one else."

His skeptical expression told me that he didn't really believe that, but he couldn't quite believe what he had seen, either.

"So, anyway, he really needs some clothes or something." I said, gesturing to Mamoru.

"Oh...of course," he said , walking to the closet. "How did that happen anyway?"

"Oh, you know," I said, "it was a wild party."

Harvey grunted in response. He rummaged through the closet for a few moments.

"I don't think any of the extra uniforms I have in here will fit him." He dragged something out, and turned to face Mamoru. "Hey, I'm really sorry about this, but this is all I have with me..." Mamoru whirled to face me, horrified. I just winced. In his hands Harvey held no less than a full-bodied chicken suit, with a garishly large Cluck-U Chicken logo branded on the front and back.

"That's...it?" I asked.

"I'm afraid so."

"Well," I said, turning to Mamoru, "at least you don't have to wear the head."

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The sight of a giant chicken stomping down the sidewalks of Georgetown waxing loquacious in a language previously unknown on this planet would have been hilarious had it not forced me to understand how fundamental our communication problem was. I couldn't go on the Internet and download a translation. I couldn't buy a dictionary. Mamoru and I had no way to speak to one another. I prayed that I could find a language spell somewhere in Petunia's house, but for now frustration had reduced Mamoru to flapping his wings.

The streets weren't very crowded, but the first time that a car sped past us Mamoru jumped in front of me, shaking his wing in a way I suppose he hoped was threatening. The car just honked. Mamoru gave me a look of sheer confusion, accompanied by another diatribe in his language, this time directed towards me. I shrugged my shoulders.

"Listen, you'll just have to trust me, Mamoru!" I said after another car passed us. "Damn it, I know you don't understand me, but..." I bowed my head in resignation. "Cars," I said slowly, miming the sound of an engine and a car horn, "are perfectly safe. Don't worry." Mamoru seemed to understand this time, and he sighed. The next time a car drove by, he flinched, but there were no more theatrics. As we neared my apartment I grew a little nervous. This would not be an ideal moment to encounter anyone I knew.

I darted into my driveway and looked around furtively. In fact, I was so busy trying to avoid people that I nearly stepped on Mrs. Aiken. She was busy separating the number 2 plastic from the number 5, but as soon as she saw me she stood up. Mrs. Aiken, unfortunately, is my landlady. Under normal circumstances we tolerated each other, but the fact that her tenants had disappeared without paying the rent probably hadn't improved her disposition. For a hopeful second I wondered if Mina had come back and settled the issue. It had been two months, after all.

"Why...May! Is that you? Or is that Serena...you two look so much like twins sometimes..."

"It's Serena, Mrs. Aiken," I said, feeling sixteen again.

"Where have you been, these two months? I know you said you would be on vacation, but it's been so long! And your rent! You're usually so good about it. And who is this? Where have you been? Why--"

"I'm really sorry about all of this, Mrs. Aiken," I said, inching towards the door. "We both had so much fun down there, we just lost track of everything. Believe me, I'll get the rent to you tomorrow, I swear." How I would do that, I had no idea, but I was willing to say just about anything to get inside my door. The fact that Mina hadn't come home yet worried me a little, though. I couldn't imagine what had possessed her to stay away for so long. Well, besides seducing half the male population of Hawaii.

"We've just come back from a Halloween party, and we're very tired, Mrs. Aiken, so if you don't mind..."

"But who is this? What a strange costume. And are you aware that Halloween was two days ago?"

"Oh, he's an...exchange student from...Georgetown University. He doesn't speak much English." I walked towards the door, dragging Mamoru with me. "Well, see you tomorrow, Mrs. Aiken," I said as I scooped the extra key out from under the potted plant beside our door. She had her mouth open to speak as I shut the door.

As soon as he realized that we were alone, Mamoru divested himself of the chicken suit. He looked like he wanted to spit on it too, but refrained. After a moment, he walked forward and hugged me tightly, saying something under his breath. I gasped and then, tentatively, hugged him back. He kissed my forehead gently, moving down my face until I raised my lips to meet his.

Strange how passion would strike us at any time. No matter where I was, or what was happening, Mamoru could command me--physically at least--with a look. Perhaps the explanation was merely biological, or perhaps it spoke of a deeper bond between us. Regardless, the end result was that I found myself naked with my back pressed against the door without being fully conscious of how we got that way. A few minutes passed before I pushed him away gently.

"You know, Mamoru," I said, knowing that he couldn't understand me, "you really need a shower. Actually," I said, sniffing, "I think I need a shower, too. Well..."I suddenly brightened, "I know! I've wanted to do this ever since..." I grabbed Mamoru's hand as I talked, walking towards the bathroom. He didn't flinch too much when I turned on the shower, but he shook his head, muttering something that I'm sure was not too flattering. My shower wasn't large, but I didn't expect that to be a problem.

Mamoru is, I must say, a very fast learner. It took him under ten seconds to figure out exactly what was going on.

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Several hours later, I crawled out from under Mamoru's arms and my covers, gripping my stomach. For a panicked moment I thought I would have to use rags again, but I then remembered that I was once again in the land of convenience and aspirin. While the thought hadn't even occurred to me before, I realized that I could easily have been pregnant. The fact that I had avoided such a state said something about my luck, but I couldn't leave it to chance anymore.

I left Mamoru asleep and got dressed quickly. Hoping that he would stay asleep until I returned, I ran out of the door and down the street to the local drug store.

I careened around the corner and into the automatic doors, almost running into a middle-aged woman carrying a large box of catnip. I apologized over my shoulder, and then paused breathlessly to look at the signs above the aisles. Unfortunately, none of them listed what I was looking for. Gulping, I approached a man shelving shampoo bottles.

I cleared my throat and he turned to me.

"Can I help you?"

"Do you have..." my voice came out a reedy whisper and I tried again. "Do you have any condoms?"

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Mamoru looked incredibly relieved when I walked through the door. I felt guilty--I should have told him I was leaving. He was as vulnerable in this world as I had been in his. More so, in fact, because he didn't even speak the language. He opened his mouth to say something as I stood there, but closed it. We were both aware of how useless words had become.

"I'm sorry," I said, knowing he would understand. He smiled, and said something else, which probably meant "don't worry about it." I gave him a weak smile in return and walked to the kitchen. He followed me in a few seconds later.

Since I was hungry, I cooked--or tried to, anyway. After I tossed some hopelessly burnt grits down the sink I stood in the middle of the kitchen, fuming. Were even grits above my skill level these days? Mamoru, seated at the kitchen table, started laughing at me.

"Oh, shut up...Mamo-chan!" At least the nickname was in his language. I assumed he called me Lady Dumpling Head, and his smile was so infectious that I couldn't help but smile back. Deciding I had better things to do than fight with kitchenware, I combed Mina's room in the hope of finding more loose change. I found a twenty-dollar bill, which was more than enough to order pizza.

I went into the living room where Mamoru was sitting, gazing expressionlessly into space. I sat next to him, picked up the remote for our sound system and turned on the radio. Mamoru jumped up, his hands reaching for his swords before he remembered that he no longer had them. When he saw that I hadn't even moved he sighed and sat back down again, muttering something. I patted him reassuringly on the shoulder and showed him how it worked. He looked suitably intrigued, but gave me a look that said far more eloquently than words: "What the hell kind of world do you live in, anyway?"

While he fooled around with the radio, I went back to Mina's room to look for male clothing. After some rummaging, I found a pair of jeans and a Redskins tee shirt that looked roughly his size. I even found some heart boxers. Mamoru eyed the clothes dubiously, but I couldn't let him wander around naked in front of the delivery man, so I made him put them on. All things considered, he looked very good. He smirked at my appreciation.

"Oh, shut up," I said.

After Mamoru and I finished demolishing the pizza, I found the extra key to Petunia's house, and took him across the street. Hopefully I could solve our language problems and maybe, if I was lucky, my money problems. Mamoru followed me in bare feet--I hadn't found anything near his shoe size in our apartment. If I could get the money for the rent, I would borrow some from Mr. Aiken tomorrow. I opened the door and flipped on the foyer lights.

Mamoru looked around curiously and then saw his painting on the wall. He said something softly, staring at the picture with a bemused expression. Then he turned away from it and gestured for me to keep going. I headed to the library, planning to check the drawer where I had found the ripped page of the traveling spell. Mamoru looked at the masses of books with an eagerness that surprised me. He found the section in his own language and sat down in front of it, ignoring me entirely. I left him to it, trying to remember where I put the key that opened the drawer. Much to my consternation, it took me almost fifteen minutes to remember that I never re-locked it in the first place.

"Stupid," I muttered, and pulled it open. I rummaged through it, but the only interesting thing I found was the envelope that Petunia had taken the cash from so long ago. There was, unfortunately, no money in the envelope but there was a small brass key--the kind that opened chests or jewelry boxes. I decided to look for what it might open after I searched the rest of her house for a solution to our language problem. As I walked out, Mamoru put down the book he was reading and followed me. I hoped that the mysteriously locked door down the hall from her bedroom would have something useful inside.

I stepped away from the door, considering. Well, I knew how to use magic, right? I gathered raw power and sent it forcefully into the lock. The flying pieces barely missed both Mamoru and I, but the door stood ajar.

"Ha!" I said triumphantly, before seeing Mamoru's wide-eyed expression. A piece of metal was embedded in the wall right next to his face.

"Sorry about that."

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Strangely enough, the room held exactly what I was looking for. Petunia had left it surprisingly clean, considering the state of the library. A mahogany desk stood in the corner of the room, with only a large book, some paper and a pen on top of it. On the walls were four large scrolls written in Mamoru's language. The floor was covered in a thick carpet. Otherwise, the room was bare. Mamoru looked at the scroll nearest us, reading with a furrow of concentration on his forehead. I walked to the desk and hefted the book. The cover was blank, but a quick glance at the table of contents confirmed my suspicions.

"An Overview of the Magical Arts, Volume One," it read at the top. "Chapter One: Traveling, Chapter Two: Healing, Chapter Three: Psychic Control, Chapter Four: Music."

I read it over again. I really hoped that language fell under one of these categories.

Mamoru called my name and I turned around. He was pointing to the scroll in the far left corner of the room. He pointed to himself and then the scroll all the while singing something.

I covered my ears. "Yikes, Mamoru, don't quit the day job, okay?"

He shook his head and continued singing.

"What the hell are you trying to say?"

He gave me a look of pure exasperation, crossed the room and snatched the book from me. He stared at it several minutes, although I couldn't imagine what he was doing since it was written in English. Finally, he looked up. He pointed to the first chapter, "Traveling" and then pointed to the scroll closest to us on the right. "Healing" apparently corresponded to the one on the far right; "Psychic Control" to the one on the near left and "Music" to the one on the far left.

Music, I thought, what about music? After a minute, I pieced it together. Of course, music, in a magical sense, must cover language as well. I smiled sheepishly at Mamoru and gave him a thumbs up. He just rolled his eyes. Picking up the book, I sat down on the floor cross-legged, and began to read.

Language, according to the book was essentially a very long, and complicated song. Which meant it could be understood innately by all like-minded creatures with the casting of a simple spell. It rambled on in this vein for quite some time before actually describing the technicalities.

"The specifics of the language spell, are, for the experienced user almost completely unnecessary. A clear, focused mind and an innate sense of the language transfer is more than enough. However, the beginning user should use each language's note sequence, listed later, when casting the spell in order to avoid confusion. The key, so to speak, of using this spell lays in how one gathers power, not in its execution. Excess power will always have harmful results, as will too little. For the beginning user, a brigan--a brigan?--ought to suffice. The power must then flow musically from the caster's mouth (if one is a beginner) to the one upon whom the language spell is being performed. Following is an index of popular languages and their note sequence."

I looked up at Mamoru and shrugged my shoulders. "Well, it can't hurt to try, at least."

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I sat next to Mamoru on the bench in front of Petunia's very expensive Steinway, situated in a room off of the foyer. While I wasn't a musician, I had taken some rudimentary piano classes when I was younger. I hoped that would be enough. I found English quickly--listed, incidentally, right after Elephant. I hefted the book onto the stand, and looked at the two tiny bars of music. Unfortunately, I seemed to have forgotten what flats, sharps and key signatures meant.

"Oh shit," I said. I didn't even know how to begin playing this.

"Serena," Mamoru said. I looked up. He said something else and pointed to the book.

"What, do you want to play?" I asked. He pushed me aside on the bench and put his hands on the keys. This had to be impossible, I thought. How could they have the same type of musical notation system in Umeru? All of the music I heard there probably couldn't even be written on a western staff. He looked at the measures for a few seconds before he tapped out the melody. I stared at him.

"How did you do that?"

Suddenly, he grinned, and played the same melody, this time with an accompaniment. I looked back at the score. I clearly wasn't much of a musician, but I knew those notes weren't on the sheet.

I sighed. "Hell, why not? You're intelligent, athletic, good-looking, incredibly artistic, why not be a musical prodigy as well? It makes perfect sense."

I made him play the notes for me a few more times before I felt ready to cast the spell. At least this was one thing I could do that he couldn't, I thought peevishly.

I drew power into me, and then stopped at what I hoped was a good amount. I turned to face Mamoru and began to sing. I was halfway through when I sung a note slightly off-pitch and I felt the spell waver dangerously. I cursed inwardly, but I had suddenly forgotten the rest of the song. Then I heard the notes again, played firmly on the piano. Feeling giddy with relief, I finished the spell.

After I finished, I glanced back at the book and noticed a few sentences printed at the bottom of the page. "Please note," it said, "singing the wrong notes may result in the irreparable harm of both caster and subject."

Of course.

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"Mamoru, where the hell did you learn to play the piano?" I asked.

"The Lady. Music isn't written that way in the south. Up north they have an instrument something like this piano. She stayed in the village with my mother and me one summer and taught me how to play it. Later, when I was traveling up north, I met up with a troupe of musicians and played with them for a few months."

I shook my head. Mamoru always did manage to surprise me. "So, just out of curiosity, how many instruments do you play?"

He thought it over for a few moments. "Seven," he said finally, "or eight, if you count this piano."

"Eight." I said. "Well, that's perfectly normal. Who doesn't know how to play at least six instruments, after all. How silly of me."

"Serena, are you okay?"

I forced a smile. "Nothing a little money wouldn't fix." I fished through my pockets, looking for the key. "I've got to do one more thing and then we can go back," I said.

I left him improvising on the piano while I went back upstairs to search Petunia's bedroom. If this actually was the key to Petunia's hidden stash of money, it was most likely in her bedroom. I searched the corners and underneath and behind all of her dressers, but I didn't find anything until I stuck my hand under her bed. Sure enough, I found a small chestnut box covered in white cat hair that had a small lock on it. I sneezed as I brushed Jeannie's hair off, and then stuck the key in the hole. It fit perfectly, and when I opened the box I discovered neatly stacked hundred dollar bills at least five wads deep.

"Jesus Christ," I said to myself as I rifled through the money, "what did she do, rob a bank?" Then I saw a number taped to the top of the box, with a dollar sign next to it and a label that read "The Inter-Planetary Association for Metaphysical and Magical studies, monetary division." I took two wads of bills and wrote down the number, just in case I would need more later.

I pocketed the money and went back downstairs. Mamoru was leaning against the piano, looking impatient.

"Shall we get out of here?" he said, "I think I want to try out that water-closet of yours again."

"With me?"

He smiled. "Of course."

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The next morning, I took Mamoru to a local diner. Now that we could understand each other, Mamoru was forcing me to explain all of twentieth century technology. I felt like I was back in high school; Mamoru wanted a level of detail that almost made me wish I remembered the horrors of senior year physics.

"What's really strange about this place," Mamoru said in between mouthfuls of waffle, "is that so much of it looks like magic, but it isn't. And it's so inefficient! If you can make the stairs move, why not the sidewalks?" Mamoru held his fork in such a determinedly ham-fisted fashion that I laughed.

"And you say I can't eat."

"Well, is it my fault that you people use shovels," he said, demonstrating. I burst into another fit of laughter. He bore it stoically.

"All I hope," I said, "is that you think twice before you mock my skills with chopsticks again."

"You, my dear, are on a completely different level," he said, clumsily spreading strawberry jam on his toast. As I had predicted, he dropped some, and in the process smeared a great deal all over his shirt.

I raised my eyebrows. "Yeah. Tell that to your dry cleaners."

Then I had to tell him what a dry cleaners was, which pretty much ruined the joke.

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After breakfast I sat down with the telephone book and called every library in the city, asking after a mysterious donation of old books and/or miscellaneous items by the estate of a man named Herman. I quickly realized, however, that I would make no progress until I could provide his full name. No librarian was willing to go through each collection donated by a Herman and see if it matched what I was looking for.

I vaguely remembered that Petunia had mentioned his last name to me back in the apple-tree grove, but no amount of mental prodding could bring it back.

"Can't you just ask the Lady?" Mamoru said once I explained the problem.

I shook my head. "I've tried. I don't think our bond works as well on different worlds. I can still feel her presence, but I can't talk to her."

"Well...she and the Kojin are siblings, aren't they? So, it stands to reason they have the same surname."

"If she didn't get married or if he didn't change his name."

"Well, maybe something will jog your memory if we search her place."

We headed back across the street. Since Mamoru couldn't read English, he sat on the library couch while I rifled through Petunia's belongings.

"I find it so hard to believe that all women in your world go around dressed like men. How do they even attract them? Those...jeans of yours leave something to be desired in the way of feminine curves."

At this opportune moment my ass--amply displayed through my "un-feminine" jeans--was in the air, since I had bent over to get a closer view at her box of romance novels. I stood up abruptly and turned to face him, arms akimbo. He looked great, as usual. Earlier today we had visited an expensive men's store in Georgetown and I had bought him some clothes.

"Oh, so you find me unattractive, do you? Perhaps you can sleep on the couch alone tonight, then? And take a shower alone, too. After all, I wouldn't want you to be repulsed by my 'manly' clothing. Who knows what it would do to you, since of course your looks are so far superior to my own." I glared at him, and then ruined the effect by blowing an errant strand of blonde hair from my face.

"Well, perhaps I didn't mean it quite like that," he said, levering himself up from the couch. He approached me warily. "I only said the clothes didn't become you, Serena, not that you were unattractive."

"Oh really?" I said. I ducked from his attempted embrace but found myself pinned against a bookshelf. Knowing I was cornered, he slowed his advance and his grin resembled that of a very satisfied cat.

"Yes," he said, "I do, in fact, find you...very attractive."

Despite myself, I smiled. There were serious problems with finding a man like Mamoru so sexy. Problems like being unable to stand my ground when he was determined to do something.

"But you...just...don't...like...my clothes?" I asked. My throat was suddenly dry. His wrapped his arms around me and his lips began an inexorable decent towards mine. His hands strayed lower and lower until they traced the shape of my hips, hugging the jeans.

"I thought..."

He smiled again, and shrugged his shoulders. "So, perhaps I was wrong."

Then his lips met mine.

I removed myself from Mamoru's embrace before the aforementioned "manly" clothes decorated the floor instead of my body and returned to the box of books. I picked another one up and looked in the front cover.

"Petunia Liverwell," I read. "Oh, of course! I knew it had to be something horrible."

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Mamoru and I headed back across the street to the less sumptuous, if more familiar comfort of my apartment. The first place I called--Georgetown University Library--said they had no records of any donations given by a Herman Liverwell. This didn't surprise me, but it was a little discouraging. There were many libraries in DC, and if I had to call all of them, it would take days. A few more calls yielded similar results.

I was in the middle of a phone call ten minutes later when Mamoru strolled into the kitchen.

He was naked. Absolutely, stark naked. He sauntered up to me as I stuttered into the phone, eyes involuntarily glued to his approaching form.

"What are you doing?" I whispered.

"I was bored," he said, smiling expansively. He sat down in a chair across from me, leaving his legs open. "I forgot where that water closet of yours is," he said, almost as an afterthought.

"Um...ma'am, excuse me? Are you there?" The clipped female voice sounded distinctly annoyed.

"Oh, s-sorry," I stuttered. "What were you saying?"

"I was saying that I checked the records and it seems--"

"Jesus Christ, Mamoru!"

"Ma'am?" the woman said. She sounded like she might hang up the phone on me.

I fended my attacker off my neck, only to have him descend to other, even more inappropriate areas. "Sorry...about that. It's my...um...cat." I bit my tongue.

"I'm just trying to tell you that it appears we do have a collection donated by a Herman Liverwell. Ma'am? Are you there?"

"Yes, yes," I said, bringing the phone back to my face. "So, you have it?"

"That's what I said."

"Oh. Umm...thank you."

"No problem," she said. "Good bye, ma'am."

Five minutes later, when the phone had ceased making the 'please hang up' noise, Mamoru disengaged himself long enough to ask me what had happened. Or at least that's what I thought that grunt meant.

"Yeah," I said, freeing my mouth, "I found it. We can go tomorrow."

"Where?" he asked, his words muffled by my hair.

"The library of congress," I said. "But for now, why don't we make further use of the water closet?"

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That evening we sat companionably on the couch, eating cold pizza and listening to music. While Mamoru had not yet come to terms with the television, the radio, and specifically modern music, fascinated him to no end. We were listening to the Beatles. His arm rested lightly around my shoulders and I leaned into him. My head felt like it was a just-opened fizzy drink. I was inundated with everything Mamoru: his slightly wet, musky scent, the feel of his chest against my face, his all-encompassing warmth. This feeling wasn't exactly wild passion, but in its own way it was just as satisfying. I put my pizza down on the coffee table, wrapped my arms around him and burrowed my face into his chest, breathing deeply. He shifted and turned my face up to him. My expression must have shown some of what I was feeling, but his answering smile seemed pained, somehow. I had no time to wonder about this because his lips bore down inexorably upon mine. The kiss deepened, and my senses fragmented.

There was the passion, certainly. Passion drawing my arms around his back, pulling him closer even while another shard of my disjointed psyche wondered why this was happening. Desperation did not allow me the time to spare for a breath. And something else I could not identify, something sad yet resolute, made me kiss him until I felt light-headed from lack of oxygen, until for a marvelous split-second it felt as though Mamoru and I existed as one entity. He broke it off, breathing heavily, and his wide eyes locked with mine. I blinked. I hadn't known anything, let alone a kiss, could feel like that.

"Serena, I..." Mamoru whispered hoarsely.

"Yes?" I said, suddenly hopeful.

He abruptly looked away. "Never mind."

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That night he had a nightmare. I woke up cold, feeling around the bed for his familiar warmth. He had rolled to the farthest edge, his eyes closed but his expression agitated. He was speaking in garbled sentences that I couldn't make out. I moved closer to him, almost frightened. He seemed so desperate. He was sweating, and the covers were tangled around his naked body like he had been fighting.

"Mamoru?" I whispered, but he didn't hear me. He shook his head back and forth, whispering something. With a shuddering breath, I leaned in closer, trying to hear what he was saying.

"No," he said, "please...don't! I'll do anything..." I shuddered. Whatever the nightmare was, I couldn't let him suffer through it any longer. I touched him gently, whispering his name over and over until he quieted. He responded to my touch and turned almost gratefully towards me, his arms wrapping around my body convulsively. I held him to me, burying my face in his hair. I could feel his tears, and his struggle to keep them back.

"Serena?" he whispered.

"Shh, I'm here Mamoru. Don't worry."

Sleep was a long time in coming.

---------------------

That morning Mamoru gave no outward indication that he remembered the events of the night before. Perhaps I was just being oversensitive, but I thought I detected something lurking beneath his smiling eyes, a lingering fear, perhaps, of whatever had scared him so the night before. I wasn't so naïve to assume that it had only been a dream--Mamoru's reaction made that easy explanation a lie. I was too afraid to bring it up, however, so I pushed the subject to the back of my mind.

We took the metro to the Library of Congress, although the bus would have been faster. The DC bus system is a trial for people born and bred in the 20th century, let alone a society that had yet to discover electricity.

Unfortunately, I doubted it would be much easier to reassure Mamoru about the cliff-like elevators of DC's metro system. From the top of the escalator at Foggy Bottom, you couldn't even see over the edge until you stepped on it. Needless to say, Mamoru wasn't exactly keen to walk over a cliff towards what must have appeared to be a decidedly uncertain future. He stood stubbornly against the wall with his arms crossed. His eyes darted periodically towards the moving staircase with a measure of awe.

"How many of these things exist? How does it work? Are you aware that we will both die if we fall off that thing?"

"Mamoru," I said with equally mixed exasperation and amusement, "We use them all the time. Unless you have your shoelace untied or anything, you'll be perfectly safe."

"My shoelace?" he said, examining his perfectly tied shoes. "Does this thing take it as a sacrificial offering?"

"This thing is an escalator. It's purely mechanical. It doesn't want your shoelace, but if it gets caught...um...bad things can happen." I belatedly realized that this was not a good time to graphically describe the dangers of escalators. Of course, having gotten that far, it did not take Mamoru much time to figure out the danger for himself. With an expression of horror, he bent over and retied his shoelaces.

"Can we go now?" I asked.

He looked at me and then the escalator. "What about your shoes?" he said finally.

"My shoes are fine! Can we leave? The library doesn't stay open forever, you know."

"Are you sure your shoes are safe?" he asked again, with genuine concern.

Amused, but touched, I humored him by bending over and tying my laces in a double knot. "Satisfied?"

He sighed and shook his head. "As much as I'll ever be," he said. He closed his eyes as he went on the first step.

---------------------

After that, Mamoru seemed more inclined to trust me about strange technology. While the approach of the train with its loud engine and bright lights made him jump in front of me, he quickly realized that this was in fact our means of transportation, not a threat.

"Does my world seem this strange to you?" he asked, after we had sat down.

The question caught me off-guard, and I had to think for a second before answering. I thought about that bout with my period, the weeks on the road without a proper bath, the constant confusion, the fighting and I realized that it really had been that strange. For the first time in two months I actually felt fully in control of a situation.

"Yes," I said.

---------------------

Mamoru decided to walk up the escalator, and he was waiting for me when I arrived panting at the top. He, of course, looked as though he could have easily hiked ten flights more. After I recovered my breath, we walked the short distance from the metro to the library.

"See, Mamoru, you have to understand that the dangers are different here," I said. "Most of them aren't physical, like in your world. Cars are noisy and they smell bad, but they aren't going to run us over on the sidewalk. Of course, there is physical danger, but that's usually in the form of heavy pieces of metal flying towards you at high velocity, which you are powerless to stop. All you can really do is minimize the damage."

Mamoru looked faintly horrified.

"That's a weapon? How does anyone defend themselves? Who would make them?"

I shrugged my shoulders. After a lifetime in the city with America's highest murder rate, I had lost all sensitivity to the thought of gun violence. "Well, I guess that people just kept making better weapons, and people who wanted to kill other people kept using them until you have these killing machines that no normal person can do anything about. The only way to stay safe is not to make yourself a target. Like I said, it's very different."

He shook his head. "I'll feel safer once we get back to my world," he said. And despite everything, I could only agree.

---------------------

I had forgotten how much I loved the Library of Congress. As I led Mamoru past the security guards in the Madison building, I was overcome with a sense of homecoming. I sniffed the air, relishing the scent of books that permeated even the hallway.

"This library," I said in a reverential whisper, "has almost every single book that has ever been written in the English language, and a bunch of other languages too."

"That's what they say about the Emperor's library, but no one is allowed to go there except his chosen vassals. I always wanted to go, though. The way my mother described it...I thought it had to be the most incredible place in the world."

My heart constricted. He was the only other person I had ever met who understood my love of the library. His mention of the Emperor, however, reminded me of our task, and I set about finding the Special Collections division. While I love the library, I don't have very many good things to say about its bureaucracy.

There were only two people ahead of us in line, but the librarian at the desk worked at roughly the speed of two-toed sloth, so we had to wait a half-hour for our turn.

"Mina I help you?" she asked in monotone. Her eyes were half closed below a worn Miami Beach visor.

"Yes." I said. "We're doing some research on..." I trailed off. Why would anyone want to see Herman's collection, anyway? The woman narrowed her eyes and I wondered if this was the same one I had terrorized on the telephone yesterday.

"We're looking for a collection donated by a Herman Liverwell," Mamoru said. "We're...writing a book about him." His voice was confident, and even though the librarian eyed me suspiciously, she gave Mamoru a distinctly dopey grin.

"Hold on, I'll see if that collection is available to the public," she said, and left with a lingering glance at Mamoru.

"We're writing a book, huh?"

"Well, I can't say I heard anything useful coming from your end."

I crossed my arms and grunted disdainfully. The librarian returned a few minutes later.

"I'm sorry," she said, shaking her head and looking like Mamoru as though she really was. "That collection is only open to congressmen and persons with explicit permission from his estate. You're not a congressman, are you?" she asked, looking hopefully at Mamoru. Mamoru, who obviously had no idea what a congressman was, stuttered for a moment, and then shook his head. She looked disappointed.

"Well," she said, "let me see if my supervisor can do anything about it. I'll be right back." Mamoru smiled at her encouragingly, and her blush spread to her hairline.

"Mamoru," I said, raising my eyebrows, "you'd better watch out. She's at least fifteen years older than you."

"What are you talking about?"

I laughed. "You really are dense, aren't you? So how do you know when I'm admiring you?"

"Because you, my dear," he said while putting his arm around my waist, "are so perfectly obvious."

I shivered a little and it took a couple of tries for me to take a deep breath. "And she wasn't?"

Mamoru had the grace to look embarrassed. "Yes, well, I guess I just didn't notice..."

"I should at least be grateful you deign to notice me, I suppose."

"It's not a matter of choice. You are absolutely unavoidable." It didn't sound like a compliment, much less a romantic gesture, but my breath stuck in my throat. The librarian came back soon after that, and the sight of Mamoru with his arm around my waist made her smile droop. I had to force myself not to smirk.

"She says that she could speak to you about it, but it will probably be difficult to get access."

"That's fine," I said. She frowned at me, smiled at Mamoru, and then led the way through a hallway of private offices. We stopped at a door on the right labeled: "Special Collections Division Coordinator: Karen Feingold." The librarian knocked on the door and motioned us to go inside. The office was spacious, with a large desk and two comfortable-looking armchairs for visitors. The walls were lined with notebooks and papers, and decorated with a few framed Library of Congress posters. The woman behind the desk, while about the same age as the librarian, looked slightly more glamorous. She kept her brown hair stylishly short with a light perm, which framed her attractive, if heavily made up face. She smiled at us when we entered the room but her gaze lingered on Mamoru.

"Please, sit down," she said. "You'll have to excuse the mess." She gestured towards her cluttered desk, but otherwise the room was spotless.

"Oh no, don't worry about it," I said with a smile.

"Thanks, Julie," she said once we had seated ourselves. Julie took her time leaving, and I'm pretty sure she lingered by the door afterwards.

"So, what can I do for you?" she asked with an engaging smile. "My name is Karen, by the way."

"I'm Serena and this is Mamoru," I said. "We're writing a book about Herman Liverwell, and we really need to have access to his collection."

"Writing a book, you say?" She opened a drawer beneath her desk and pulled out a large binder. "Might I ask what sparked your interest in him?" She had started flipping through the pages. "I can't say I've ever heard anything about him until now."

"Well...um...he's...he was my godfather." Karen gave me a sharp look, and I realized that a man who must have "died" or at least disappeared in the fifties could not possibly be the godfather of someone as young as I. "My mother's godfather, I mean," I amended hastily. "They were so close and she...always told me...stories about him. So, when I told Mamoru about his life...he was the one who gave me the idea to...um...write his biography."

The smile still remained on her face, but I knew she was wondering--as many women did, it seemed--exactly what relationship I had with Mamoru.

"It seems fascinating," she said, but I knew she probably wasn't referring to Herman. "Well, here is his entry. This is a index of every donated collection in the Library of Congress. Here, it says: 'Collection number 2113C: Herman Liverwell, donated 1950 under restriction. Contains journals, foreign language books and several old maps.'" After she had finished, she looked up at us with a perfectly executed expression of regret.

"I'm sorry, but says here that it was donated "under restriction," which means that we can't show it to the general public. Only congressmen and those who have express permission from his estate can see it." Which was exactly what Julie the librarian had told us a half hour ago.

Mamoru's expression was carefully blank, which told me that he was seconds away from saying something that would only get us kicked out of the library.

"Tell you what," she said, "Why don't I go and find the contact information for his estate. I know how frustrating this can be."

"We would really appreciate that," Mamoru said, speaking for the first time. His smile was so forcefully charming that I knew he was doing it on purpose. It worked, of course. After her initial surprise to hear him talk--she must have assumed he didn't speak English-- she practically glided out the door.

---------------------

Mamoru ran out of the room a few moments later, saying something about having an idea. He returned after five minutes, looking very satisfied with himself. I did not have any time to yell at him, however, because Karen entered the room as soon as Mamoru sat back down.

"Here's the information," she said, handing us two photocopied sheets. "It appears he has no living relatives, but his estate is managed out of a private research library in South Carolina. I don't know how accurate this information is, though. The files looked pretty old. At least it should be a good place to start."

"Thank you very much. We really appreciate it," Mamoru said, standing up. He was overdoing it--whatever he had just done had put him in a good mood--but Karen didn't appear to notice.

"Oh, it was no trouble at all. If you need anything else, don't hesitate to ask for me." This last was directed exclusively towards Mamoru, but I chose to answer.

"Thanks so much for the offer, but I don't think we need to bother you anymore. Goodbye!" And with a fake smile painfully plastered on my face, I opened the door, shoved Mamoru through and closed it behind me.

---------------------

Mamoru and I lay on the Jefferson building lawn, eating pizza and drinking milkshakes. It was a beautiful fall day, probably one of the last of the season, with red-gold leaves still on the trees and a balmy breeze blowing my hair away from my face.

"So, what are we going to do now?" I asked, leaning on Mamoru's shoulder.

"Aren't you supposed to be the one in charge?"

"I thought it was a joint effort. Besides, you still haven't told me what you were doing back there. Just spill it, will you?"

"Spill what?" he asked.

I sighed. I kept forgetting that some colloquialisms translated literally. "I mean, why don't you tell me what you found out? I mean, you don't have to tell me if you don't want too. I could just stay here, and let you take the metro back home all by yourself..."

"You wouldn't."

"You bet I would."

"Fine, fine," he said, laughing a little. "So, I realized that she said she was going to find out some information about his estate, right? Well, I assumed that the information on his estate would be kept with the rest of his collection. So, I followed her."

"Wait, Mamoru," I said, "how did you follow her? She left at least thirty seconds before you did."

"I have my ways. As I was saying, I followed her and found out where his collection was." He smiled and leaned back against a tree.

"Um...Mamoru, why does it matter if we know where Herman's collection is?"

"How are we supposed to look through it, otherwise?"

"That's what I was asking you. We have to call his estate or something..."

Mamoru looked incredulous. After a moment, he started laughing. He laughed until his eyes streamed, while I ground my teeth.

Eventually, he calmed down. "You really don't know what I'm talking about, do you?" he said.

"No. I'm just standing here because I like it when you laugh at me."

"Isn't it obvious? We're going to have to break into the Library."

---------------------

"You're completely insane," I said for the fifth time that evening.

"So you've told me," he said. We walked into my apartment and paused while he removed his shoes out of sheer habit. "And you know I'm not. It's the only way to find the journals we need. Anything else will take too long, and you know as well as I do how little time we have, Serena."

"Yes, yes, I know that, but you don't understand my world at all! It is impossible, downright impossible to break into a building as heavily-fortified as the Library of Congress. Remember those weapons I told you about? Well, they're called guns and that's just one of the things that would kill us if we even attempted to break in!" I was pacing the floor of the living room, my voice steadily rising in pitch. "I don't mind getting into dangerous situations, hell, this entire fucking adventure has been one dangerous situation. But you've almost died once when I could have stopped it, and I'm not about to let you do something I know will get you killed, and...and..." I trailed off, abruptly sitting down on the couch. To my dismay, I found myself on the verge of tears, and I bit my tongue. Of course, it was possible that Mamoru would just get arrested, but I knew that he wouldn't go without a fight, and fighting with police is an easy way to kill yourself.

Mamoru sat down next to me. "I'm sorry," he said. "You're right, I don't know your world that well. We'll just have to think of something else, I guess."

I nodded. I knew that if I opened my mouth I would start crying. Sensing this, Mamoru simply held me, while I tried to purge my mind of thoughts of his death. It didn't entirely work.

---------------------

Later that night Mamoru left, promising to come back soon. He didn't tell me where he was going, and I didn't really want to know. I trusted him enough not to go to Library of Congress alone. Five minutes after he had left, however, he burst in through the front door, his face wearing the tough, determined expression more appropriate to our adventures in his world than anything that had happened here. He closed the door. His eyes raked over my body, as though he were making sure that I was okay. I opened my mouth to ask him what had happened, but he brushed past me, forgetting to take off his shoes. Two minutes later he returned, looking considerably relieved.

"No one's here," he said.

"Of course not. Why would there be? Mamoru, what's going on?"

"They haven't been here yet, but Serena, I think we have to leave soon. It's getting dangerous...if they catch us, it's all over."

"If who catches us? What the hell happened?"

"Here, come with me. I'm pretty sure they've left."

Suddenly frightened, I followed Mamoru across the street to Petunia's house. The lock was broken and it reeked of peppermint. Mamoru pushed open the door.

Petunia's house had been trashed. All of her beautiful treasures had been upended and broken apart, her carpets slashed. We walked slowly into the library, and I had a hard time comprehending a mind that could allow such destruction of such lovely, cared-for things. Carpets and statues were one thing, but books were sacred. Each one of these books had been looked at and tossed aside. A strange suspicion lodged itself in my stomach and I raced upstairs. The room with the scrolls had been ransacked, so systematically demolished that I found myself shaking. They had been looking for Petunia's spell-book. Of course, they hadn't found it. It was still safely across the street in my bedroom.

"But why?" I asked. "Why would they even bother looking for the book? Herman must know all of the information in it by now. Why would he do this?"

Mamoru wrapped his arms around my waist. "Because he's afraid of what may happen if you gain that much knowledge. He knows you would become that much more of a threat."

"We have some time, still," I said, "he doesn't know where we are."

"For now," Mamoru said, and led me back down the stairs.

Not only was time running out for Umeru, it appeared that we were in immediate danger as well. Peppermint engulfed the house, and I wondered that the neighbors hadn't complained yet. I had felt the magical barriers that Petunia protected her house with; it must have taken a considerable amount of magic for Herman to break them. Mamoru and I walked out of the library silently and stood in the foyer. He was about to speak when I saw something lying on the floor in a shredded heap. I had missed it at first, but seeing something that I had loved so much destroyed in such a calculated, malignant manner made me ball my fists in anger. Tears stung my eyes.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, still looking at the shredded canvas of his painting. I heard him walk up behind me. "It was...your mother, wasn't it? The picture."

"I painted it a year before she died. I gave it to the Lady after...I couldn't really bear to look at it."

I slammed my fist into the ground with such force that Mamoru flinched. "I'll never forgive them for this," I said. Mamoru knelt behind me, putting his hands tentatively on my tensed back.

"It's okay, Serena. It's only an...object, a painting."

"But, your mother..."

"I lost that painting a long time ago, but I can't forget her so easily."

I paused and took a deep breath. "Let's go, Mamoru. They might come back and, besides, we have a job to do."

"What's that?" he asked, smiling. Of course he already knew. He always did.

"We're going perform the first successful break-in of the Library of Congress."

---------------------

Easier said than done, as the cliché goes. Mamoru insisted on camping out by the door, and since he wouldn't go to sleep, I dragged Petunia's tome out into the living room and sat with him. I had to admit that his watchful presence made me feel safer. I could not sleep easily knowing that Herman or Ushiro with Herman's magic was loose in our world. I opened Petunia's book, searching for something that would help us break into the Library. While we didn't have a prayer of getting in under our own steam, it might just be barely possible with judicious use of magic.

Of the four overall headings, "Psychic Control" seemed the most promising. The first part described how to survive without food for long periods of time, followed by a part about controlling emotions and thoughts that sounded like something out of a self-help book. The next part appeared to have what I was looking for, though.

"Controlling other's thoughts," I read aloud, largely for Mamoru's benefit. He was looking bored. "Is a very dangerous proposition even to the most adept of magic users. This often strays too deeply into the darker arts--commonly referred to as black magic--and the repercussions are often cosmic in scale. Only the direst circumstances should require one to directly control other people's thoughts. The consequences of using black magic go much farther than a mere unpleasant death.

"--A mere unpleasant death?" I interrupted myself. Shaking my head, I continued.

"Therefore, this book will not explain the exact methods of this dark art, as we hope such tactics will someday be gone forever. Far safer, and generally more reliable methods of psychic control are ones that involve mental suggestion. Mental suggestion is a type of magic that works on weak-minded people when the caster directs his object to do something that naturally follows his last action. This type is highly useful for breaking and entering, smuggling and other such underhanded activities. The most common type of psychic control is most usefully applied to mental invisibility. 'Real' invisibility requires a huge expenditure of magic that is often not worth the time, skill, effort or danger. Mental invisibility, as all types of safe psychic control, requires only a small amount of magic and does virtually the same thing. With the aid of a judicious amount of magic, the caster suggests that he is not worth noticing. The compilers suggest repetition, to ensure reliability, but this technique will not work against those specifically warned against it or those of generally strong will." I skimmed the rest of the pages, but did not come up with anything else of use.

"I guess that's it," I said finally, feeling even more nervous than when we had begun. "I hope this will be enough."

Mamoru's expression was grim. "It will have to be, won't it?"

---------------------

It was raining when we left, the kind of cold, desultory rain that can go on for days and infect the entire city with a strange, listless melancholy. It was a cold fall night to begin with, and in my haste I had forgotten a coat. As we walked to the metro station, I shivered uncontrollably in my thin sweater, but Mamoru seemed impervious to the cold. For the tenth time in so many minutes I considered what we were about to do and wondered if I was crazy. I hoped that we would actually be able to find something useful about the seventh moon in Herman's collection. Magic or no magic, breaking into the Library of Congress was not one of the world's most intelligent ideas. And here I was, I thought with a half smile. My snort of laughter turned into a sneeze--cold weather always made my nose run.

"Are you okay?" Mamoru asked.

"Yes," I said through chattering teeth.

"Here," Mamoru said, handing me his jacket. Underneath it, though, he was only wearing a short sleeve shirt, and I didn't want him to freeze. I just pushed it back towards him.

"You're cold," he said, handing it to me again.

"But you're not wearing anything. I'll be okay."

At this Mamoru stopped walking and turned to face me, an oddly gentle smile on his face. He put his hand on my shoulder and I shivered far more violently than a mere chill warranted.

"It's all right," he said softly, "I'm not cold. Weather resistance was part of my training at the monastery. But, Serena," and as he said my name there was something in his deep eyes that made breathing almost impossible, "even if I were cold, it wouldn't matter."

My eyes remained open as if they had been lacquered in place, and I only began to blink again when I felt pinpricks of rain on them. With an unsteady hand I took the coat, and put it on. The rest of the ride to the Library was uneventful, probably because I couldn't seem to speak. The walk from the metro to the library is unfortunately short. I had no plan to speak of, but since Mamoru seemed to trust my abilities entirely, I hadn't yet found the heart to relate this fact to him.

"Um...Mamoru?" I said.

"Hmm?" His body was tensed as if he was expecting to fight.

"I...um...I don't think--" I stopped abruptly when I heard voices directly in front of us. For a panicked moment I thought that we had been spotted, but I realized that we were overhearing a conversation and they couldn't see us because we were concealed behind a large potted bush. Mamoru and I fell silent and peered through the leaves. To my surprise, I recognized one of the people immediately: Julie the librarian was arguing with a female security guard.

"Listen, I'm very sorry about this, but I left my briefcase in there and I absolutely have to go back in and get it!"

"I'm sorry, ma'am , but I'm not allowed to let anyone in after closing."

"I work here! See," she said, pulling out her wallet and showing her librarian ID.

"Well, I still don't think I should let you in..." she said. I could see her wavering a little.

"You really don't understand how important this is. I have extremely important papers in there that I have to mail out before tomorrow morning."

"But, ma'am, you know I wouldn't want to get in trouble or anything..."

Generally I get ideas gradually. I start with a kernel, a snatch of a conversation or a passing thought, and I will develop and nurture it into a full-blown plan. Sometimes, however, ideas simply come to me, fully formed and ready for execution. Thankfully, this was one of those times. As I stared at the scene before me, my course of action seemed so simple I could have kissed both women's feet. Feeling far more confident than I had since we discovered Petunia's ransacked house, I drew a small amount of power. The security guard was obviously unsure; all I had to do was push her over the edge.

"...they get really mad if you go against protocol..." the woman was saying.

"It's okay," I thought, "no one will know if you just help her out. Just open the door, and nothing will happen." Although I had not quite believed it would do anything, the security guard shook her head a little, and then shrugged her shoulders.

"All right, I'll take you in."

Mamoru grinned at me, although there was no way he could have known I had anything to do with it.

"Oh, thank you so much! You have no idea how much this means to me!"

The woman shrugged her shoulders. "Come on, we can go through the security entrance."

I let Mamoru take the lead as we followed the two women around the building, back down the stairs to a small door. She took out her security card and swiped it on the side, and after the light turned green typed in a pass code. I couldn't see what the code was from where I stood, but it didn't matter. As soon as the door swung open I grabbed Mamoru and quickly performed that small bit of magic that I had done once before in the dungeon long before I had known what I was doing. Repeating "don't notice us," like a mantra, we slipped in after Julie just before the security guard closed the door behind her. My brain felt fuzzy, but I held onto Mamoru tightly as we followed the two down the hall. Thankfully, Julie worked in the special collections division, so they led us practically straight to where we needed to be. Just before they left, Julie, bag in hand, sniffed the air curiously.

"Do you smell something?" she asked the security guard.

The woman sniffed, and then nodded slowly. "Yeah, I do, but I don't know what..."

"It smells like...chocolate."

My hands clenched at my sides and my stomach tightened.

After a moment the security guard shrugged her shoulders. "Someone must have been eating the stuff before they left. Come on, let's go." I only managed to take a full breath after I heard their retreating footsteps fade down the hall. I had completely forgotten about my trace scent!

Mamoru and I stood alone in the hallway behind the anteroom of the special collections office. I released the invisibility spell, enjoying the return of my sensations.

Mamoru looked impressed. "That was fantastic, Serena. And here I thought you didn't even have a plan."

My smile froze midway on my face.

"You really didn't have a plan, did you?

"Well, obviously I did," I said, "We're here, aren't we? And besides, I didn't hear you helping out any."

"Oh, I had a plan."

"What?"

"If it came to that, I was just going to break the door down."

---------------------

Mamoru led us unerringly towards Herman's collection. The door he indicated looked exactly like every other one in the dimly lit hallway, but he seemed sure of himself. The door, of course, was locked.

"Well, I suppose I could explode the lock like I did back at Petunia's--"

Mamoru shot me a look of horror. "I was thinking of something a little less life-threatening."

"So how do you propose we do it then?"

"Do you have a piece of metal? Long and thin, and something with a hook?"

"You're going to pick the lock?" I said. "They can't possibly have locks this sophisticated on your world."

"At least I'm not planning on blowing it up. Do you have any metal?"

"Why on earth would I carry around--" I stopped, remembering that I actually did have something that could fit that description. I pulled the bobby pins out of my hair and handed them to him. "Here," I said. Without the metal support, my hair fell sloppily around my face and in my eyes. Mamoru took the pins, bent them out of shape and knelt in front of the door. After perhaps two minutes of work with the lock, I heard something catch inside, and the doorknob turned easily.

"But, how did you..." I really hadn't thought he would be able to do it.

"I guess whoever runs this library doesn't care much who gets into Herman's stuff."

---------------------

The room housed three collections other than Herman's. Mamoru looked at the maps while I took the journals. A quick glance at the dates told me that they were all written between 1945 and 1950. I felt some dread settle in my stomach; if I had to read all ten of these through it would take me a week, at least. I looked over to where Mamoru was studying over the maps. From over here, the land masses didn't look like any continents I was aware of.

"What are those maps of?" I asked.

"My world, it seems," he said. "Although no maps I've ever seen go beyond the Qeng empire. I think that he has somehow mapped the whole world." His voice was incredulous. "I had no idea my world was so large. Look at all of these places!" I saw a glint of something in his eyes--of excitement, perhaps, but mostly of wanderlust. As he looked at the maps I could see his desire to travel everywhere, to explore the places that these maps described. And strangely enough, I found that I wanted to go with him. If we survived this, I promised myself, we would have those adventures together. For the rest of our lives, perhaps. We would strike out on uncharted territory, with only each other, and that would be enough. Mamoru glanced at me and I wondered if he knew what I was thinking.

I began to skim the journals, yawning over pages and pages filled with the mundane details of what appeared to be a long and uncharacteristic stint in this world. Apparently, Herman had taken his leave of the Emperor so that he could find some girl that Petunia was hiding. He never mentioned the girl's name--perhaps he didn't even know it--but he was searching for her because she was an indigenous magic user, one of those Petunia had told me about. Not an Aranu, like the Princess, but a Kanare. He was obsessed with finding her, terrified of the Kanare's power, but coveting it as well. It amazed me that he was so candid about the existence of magic and other worlds, but perhaps he hadn't expected other people to read his journals. Even if someone did, it was a pretty safe bet that they wouldn't believe him anyway. I skimmed page after page, but nowhere did I see any mention of the seventh moon. This baffled me, since the Kanare's power was supposedly intimately tied to the cycles of the moons. After nearly an hour, while skimming through the entries during the first few months of 1948, I found his only reference to the seventh moon.

"Mamoru!" I said, moving the rest of the journals away from my place on the floor.

He grunted absently, still absorbed in the maps. I jogged his elbow.

"I found something," I said.

"Read it."

"January 5, 1948-- That meddling sister of mine has gotten herself into a huge mess this time. I told her that this would happen if she kept up such habits, but she never listened to me even when we were on speaking terms. I really can't say I know exactly what happened, but as far as I can tell, Petunia burned down half of the Georgetown Public Library. If I know Petunia, she probably ignored the warnings and botched a transportation spell. Regardless of the fact that it was illegal--I think we both have forgotten about the existence of rules in this world--anyone with four hundred years of magical experience ought to know that transport of books causes conflagration.

Regardless, this particularly fruitful bit of Petunia's incompetence might make things easier for me. I know she wants to know how close I am to finding the girl, and what I know about the seventh moon. I've been working on a treatise on the subject--I'm contemplating submitting it to the consortium for review. After nearly seventy years of work, I deserve some recognition. My only fear is what Petunia would do if she knew what I had learned about it. Could she take that final step and discover how to harness its power? No, I must consider this a little longer--I cannot let a desire for professional recognition ruin my plans."

I stopped. "There's nothing else," I said. "This treatise of his, about the seventh moon... I guess Petunia doesn't even know it exists."

Mamoru shrugged and went back to the maps. The next mention of the seventh moon was in an entry dated two weeks later.

"January 16, 1948," I read, "I'm contemplating establishing a private library, and donating these journals to the Library of Congress. It was folly for me to consider submitting my work to the consortium--the knowledge it contains cannot fall into my sister's hands. I know that she longs to destroy me. She will never let me realize my power. The book, and all the knowledge it contains, I will hide in plain sight in the library, protected by magic. One day I will discover how to use the seventh moon, and then even Petunia will bow to me."

Mamoru and I stared at each other. "Do you...do you think he's found it?" I asked. "Do you think he knows how to use it?"

He shook his head. "I don't think so. I think that's why he wants the Princess so badly, because he still doesn't know."

"And the book?"

"We'll go to his library and hope it's still there. You have the address, right?"

I nodded and then froze when I heard the sound of footsteps moving cautiously down the hallway outside. I glanced at the door and realized that I had left it ajar. I wondered what security would do when they found us here, buried knee-deep in a foreign collection that they would probably accuse us of stealing. Then the door opened, and I almost wished that someone were here to arrest us.

It wasn't a security guard. It was one of Ushiro's men.

---------------------

His identity was obvious, but not for any outward reason. He was dressed in modern clothes and carried what looked to be a very real gun. But then, there was the faint scent of peppermint, and the immediate recognition that lit his face when he saw us both, Mamoru leaning against the bookshelf and me still seated on the floor. I felt helpless. I had managed to get us past the menace of the guards, but I did not know what to do against a man with a gun, soon to be joined by several other men with guns.

He aimed it at Mamoru's face, and I was shocked at how expertly he handled it. When had Herman taught his men the use of firearms? Mamoru must have recognized the weapon from my descriptions, because he remained where he was. The man spoke and it took me a second to realize that he wasn't speaking English. After a brief struggle, Mamoru responded in the same language, and it maddened me that I couldn't understand what they were saying. I heard more footsteps in the hallway and apparently so did our assailant, because he called out to them over his shoulder. In that moment of inattention, Mamoru ran forward and tried to take the gun from his hands. I screamed for him to stop--I heard the footsteps getting closer--but he either didn't hear me or ignored me. Mamoru was the better fighter and he could easily have won, so I stared for a moment in confused shock when he let himself get pushed to the floor. Then I saw his reason: another step in that direction and they would have destroyed the maps.

Idiot. The man's gun was trained at Mamoru's chest. After a brief hesitation he slowly tightened his finger on the trigger.

I have never moved so fast in my life. I dove towards Mamoru, and knocked all the breath out of my body with the force of our impact. My desperate move had accomplished what it had to, though. The bullet had missed, although the painful stinging on my thigh told me I had been grazed.

The alarm went off, accompanied by shouts and the pounding steps of people racing down the hall. Our assailant's gun was still pointed at us, but it wavered when he realized that his friends probably weren't going to back him up.

He's going to kill us, kill us and run. In that second, I made my decision. Even so, only the reassuring feel of Mamoru beneath my body gave me the will to go through with it. I drew power and shoved it into the gun, just as the bullet would have left the chamber.

It exploded backwards, hitting the man in the face and splattering blood everywhere. I heard heavier footsteps heading down the hall, shouting at the noise. Police officers, I thought. We had to leave, and with our only exit blocked, magic was the only way out. I hadn't tried to teleport within a world, but I thought that perhaps if had an exact mental picture of where I wanted to travel it may work.

Mamoru stood up and ran to gather the maps. Painfully aware of the thud of footsteps outside the door, I grabbed him and performed an even faster teleportation than the one I had executed back at Petunia's idyll. I had the momentary sensation of an overpowering scent of chocolate before we entered the void. Since I had given absolutely no heed to where we landed, we were lucky that I managed the kitchen floor.

---------------------

We lay there silently for several moments, trying to come to terms with what had just happened. I was shivering uncontrollably, vaguely aware but somehow detached from the growing pain in my thigh. I had just killed someone.

"Serena?" Mamoru said hoarsely, sitting up.

I didn't answer. Tears seeped out of the sides of my eyes.

He had blood on his shirt and for a panicked moment I thought that it was his. "Serena?" he said again, this time leaning over my shivering form. I closed my eyes, but when I did I kept seeing the man's face the moment before the gun exploded. The tears came harder.

I relaxed slightly when Mamoru reached over and held me tightly to his chest, and I clung to him, sobbing uncontrollably. I had just killed a man, yes. But he had almost killed Mamoru.

"I'm sorry," he whispered finally, after my sobs had died down. I pulled away from him and looked into his eyes. They were so sad that I hugged him again.

"Sorry?" I asked.

"It was all my fault. I wanted those maps so badly that I put us both in danger. Especially you...you almost were killed..."

"I'm fine," I said, not so sure of that myself. "And besides, we need the maps, don't we?"

"We do?"

"Of course," my tone was light, but it came with effort. "To go on rollicking adventures together, exploring your world."

I felt his smile, and his arms tightened around my waist. "Thank you," he said finally.

"For what?"

"For understanding."

I looked into his face and smiled a little. Perhaps it didn't feel so unnatural. "Don't worry, Mamoru," I said, "I have practice." I kissed him. I wanted more, but he was gentle with me, drawing away too quickly.

"I...I don't know if this will help at all," he said softly, "but I felt like this my first time, too."

"Your first time?"

"The first time I killed."

---------------------

I lay against his chest for a while longer, and would have stayed there indefinitely had Mamoru not insisted I stand up. It was at that point I remembered the bullet wound. The bloodstain was easily visible on my khaki's, and I heard Mamoru's sharp intake of breath when he realized that the blood was my own.

"When did that..."

"I'm all right, it's just a graze. When I pushed you out of the way."

Mamoru nodded. Silently he picked me up, and while in other circumstances I might have been inclined to protest, it was all I could do to stop the tears behind my eyes. He put me down on the kitchen counter by the sink. I wanted to tell him not to worry, not to blame himself for any danger that I might have been in, but I knew he wouldn't listen. He took my pants off gently, and I tried not to wince as he pulled off the dried fabric. As I suspected, the furrow on my right thigh was fairly shallow.

"Here, use this," I said, handing him gauze from the first aid kit that I kept under the sink. I tried to spare him as much as I could, but it did hurt, and I couldn't help from wincing every now and then. Despite everything, his tenderness made my entire body ache with something so strange I couldn't name it. After he finished he picked me up again and carried me to the bed.

"Go to sleep, Serena," he said, brushing the hair away from my face.

I opened my mouth to respond, but there was nothing I could say.

---------------------

I slept late the next morning. When I awoke I wondered if the events of the night before had been a dream, but the mild throbbing of my thigh sufficiently proved that it had been all too real. I limped to the kitchen, and then paused in the doorway watching Mamoru with some amusement. Apparently, the phone was no longer such a mystery to him, because spread on the counter was food from what looked like every delivery place within a ten block radius.

"What are you doing?" I asked, unable to keep the laughter from my voice.

He looked up from an intense engagement with some waffles, and smiled sheepishly. "I thought you might be hungry?"

---------------------

An hour later, I sat on the couch in the living room and wondered how much weight I had just gained. Mamoru lay beside me, a very satisfied smile on his face.

The TV was on, but I wasn't inclined to watch another Jerry Springer rerun, so I grabbed the remote and changed the channel. About three seconds later I wished that I hadn't, but by then it was too late.

"The so-called "chocolate murderers" mysteriously escaped tight security and police custody a little over an hour ago, and have yet to be apprehended. Three men were arrested in the Library of Congress late last night after several shots were heard in a restricted portion of the building. An unidentified man was found dead in a room housing several limited access special collections. When police found him, the room was filled with the overwhelming smell of chocolate, which police believe is how the murderers mark their kills. Although taken into custody shortly after police arrived, the three men have just escaped, and are believed to be armed and dangerous. Anyone who has information regarding these men's capture, or knowledge of their whereabouts, please call your local police station immediately. Anyone who encounters the unexpected smell of chocolate is advised to clear the area immediately and seek help."

My jaw sagged a little more as the screen changed to show pictures of the men. The slightly fierce expression and strangely narrow eyes would have been sufficient, but the long, ridged scar across his neck made me quite sure it was Ushiro.

---------------------

"Why couldn't it have been the Peppermint Murders?" I said, a little shakily, after I turned off the television.

"The smell of your last spell must have overpowered the room." His expression was intense, like it always was when we encountered a large problem. Soon, I knew, he would come up with a plan, which was good because I felt conspicuously out of my depth. At least Ushiro and his men had been so readily available to take the blame for the murder. Eventually, however, someone would remember the two people who wanted to see that particular collection. They would also realize that some of it was missing, I thought, glancing at the blood-splattered maps that littered the coffee table.

"We have to leave," Mamoru said.

"Leave?" I repeated, dumbly. I didn't seem to be thinking properly.

"We have to find the Kojin's book quickly, before Ushiro can get to it, you understand? It's a race now. They probably already have a head start on us. The Kojin-- Herman sent them to stop us from getting the book, and that means we have to do all in our power to get it."

"All right," I said. "Where is his estate? We must have that address somewhere." I looked around the living room and found it, eventually, under the maps on the coffee table. I muttered to myself as I scanned the sheet, looking for the pertinent information. "1416 Port Royal, South Carolina," I read. "South Carolina? What a strange state to hide a book in. We're heading south, I guess." I paused, thinking.

"All right," I said finally. "We could take the train, but I think that would be too risky. Ushiro could easily have people monitoring the trains to South Carolina, and I really don't think he'll have a problem sabotaging an entire train just to get rid of us."

"What's a train?"

"Well...um...they're these big, long tube thingies that travel on tracks and stop every two seconds and serve very bad food. Like the metro, but longer."

Mamoru stared at me for a second and shook his head. "I won't even ask."

"I think we should take Mina's car and drive there. It's not that far, maybe two days' worth of driving, and if we're lucky Ushiro will still be looking for us here. I don't think he'll expect us to drive down. And if he does chase us, it's easier to get away."

"So, you mean we're going to drive one of those other noisy carriages?"

It occurred to me, belatedly, that Mamoru had yet to ride in a car. "Um...yes?"

"It should be fun," he said.

Mamoru insisted on taking the maps with us, but I was nervous about keeping such stolen merchandise out in the open. We compromised by keeping them in the trunk underneath the rest of our luggage.

I took a shower, and for once Mamoru did not insist that he join me. Afterwards, I packed for both of us, including a giant road map of the East coast. I also brought Petunia's spell-book; I planned to look up teleporting when I had the chance. Trying to account for everything, I combed the kitchen for non-perishable food items. While we could, of course, stop to eat, I felt as though that would be too dangerous. Better to stop only when we had to, and eat as much as we could on the road, I thought. I turned to put a box of marshmallow cereal into my bag, and almost jumped when I saw Mamoru standing in the doorway.

"You ready?" I said. He nodded, staring at me intently.

"What is it?" I asked.

"You," he said. My heart rate jumped. Then he shook his head. "Never mind, let's go."

I grabbed Mina's keys from the hook in the kitchen, and let Mamoru carry the bags outside. It was a beautiful day out, a true Indian summer, so I was content to leave the hood down. I had always wanted to drive a convertible, anyway. He put our stuff in the back seat while I slipped a note for Mrs. Aiken under her door along with a check for next month's rent, in case Mina hadn't gotten back by that time.

"Well, let's go," I said, and turned the ignition.

---------------------

I had never been comfortable with the thought of a million cars all traveling at insane speeds down a stretch of asphalt, but Mamoru, at least, seemed to enjoy himself. I would have talked to him, but for at least the first hour I was too nervous to change the radio station, let alone carry on a conversation.

After about two hours, Mamoru turned to me. "Hey, Serena," he said over the wind.

"Why don't you stop? Do they have towns on this road? Perhaps we can eat something. I've seen those large pictures on the poles around, maybe we can find food underneath?"

"You mean the billboards?" I asked. "They're just advertising for food, you have to get it somewhere else. Maybe we can go to a rest stop or something." As I said it, I saw signs advertising one just ahead and turned into the exit.

---------------------

The rest stop was huge, with a cafeteria-style food court that held representatives from what looked like every major fast food chain in America. Mamoru satisfied himself with pizza while I visited McDonalds. We sat down at an empty table near the door. I had rarely seen a rest stop so crowded. I would have thought most people had better places to eat at four o'clock in the afternoon.

We had not been sitting for very long when a girl walked up to us. She couldn't have been more than seventeen or eighteen, but her tight black pants, green halter-top and large silver hoops were meant for someone a lot older. She held a soda in one hand, and while I could not imagine why, she was making a beeline for our table. Much to my surprise and amusement, she pulled up a chair and sat down as though she belonged there.

"Um...hello?" I said as she took a long sip of her soda.

She briefly nodded at me, and then turned towards Mamoru, flipping her brown ponytail over one shoulder. Mamoru regarded her curiously, but he continued to eat his pizza.

"My name is Lita," she said, widening her forest green eyes. She had a light country accent. Mamoru kept eating. I just stared. Lita, apparently undaunted by this frosty reception, drank more of her soda before continuing. "I saw you two from across the room, and I thought: 'they look like nice, caring souls.'" She reached across the table and grabbed Mamoru's hand. He made no move to remove it.

"You see," she said, "I really need some help. I'm..." she leaned in closer and lowered her voice, "I'm running away. I was hitching a ride with a truck driver, but he was getting a little too familiar, so I figured I could find some nice people here. That's why I need you."

"Hey, Lita," I said, "I would love to help you, but we really can't take anyone else right now. Why don't you just go back home? Believe me, it's not that safe for runaways, especially not...how old are you, anyway? Sixteen? Seventeen?"

She looked directly at me, as if I had challenged her. "I'm twenty one," she said coldly. I rolled my eyes.

"Give me some credit. Why would a twenty one year old run away from home? Besides, you look younger. If you want to come with us, you at least have to tell the truth."

She sighed. "Fine, I'm seventeen. Now can you take me?"

"There are plenty of other people in this rest stop. Ask one of them. Besides, you don't even know where we're going!"

"Where are you going?"

"South Carolina."

"That's fine," she said, shrugging her shoulders. "So long as it's away from here."

"We're not taking you!" I said, trying to keep my voice from rising to a shout.

She turned to look at Mamoru imploringly. "You'll take me, won't you? You won't let her be this mean, will you?"

Mamoru tried to remove his hands from her grip, but she held on tighter. "Um...Serena," he said, sounding a little amused, "why can't we just take her?"

"What are you talking about?" I said in what I hoped was a low voice. Lita looked on, fascinated. "In case those three inches of cleavage has made you forget, we are running away from several men whose only intent is to kill us. They will have no compunction about killing anyone else who is with us, including seventeen year old runaways who like wearing skimpy clothing."

Mamoru looked at me a little sheepishly, but Lita interrupted before he could respond.

"Wait, wait, you mean you guys are being chased by some people? Who? Is it really dangerous, like in the movies? You have to let me come with you."

I gave her an incredulous look, disregarding the fact that this probably would have been my reaction three months ago, let alone five years. "Do you want to get killed? You're in too much danger just sitting with us right now." Well, perhaps that was an exaggeration, I thought, but it would get its point across.

"I can fight!" she said, looking back and forth between Mamoru and I. "I know how to use a gun...if you have a gun, that is. I don't have one with me."

"No, we don't have a gun," I said firmly, "so why don't you just leave us alone?"

"You don't have a gun?" she asked. "How do you expect to defend yourselves, then?"

"We have other methods," Mamoru said, but his words only seemed to increase her curiosity.

"Like what?" she asked.

I had opened my mouth to respond when an apparition in the far entrance made my words die in my throat. Mamoru must have seen my expression change because he gripped my hand and turned towards the door. Lita, catching the mood, turned as well.

"Is that them?" she asked breathlessly, pointing to the three figures who had just walked in.

"They," I said.

"What are we going to do?" Lita asked.

"There is no 'we' about this, Lita. You are going to stand up, casually, and walk straight for the bathroom, and stay there for at least half an hour. You hear me?" My tone was urgent, but she barely acknowledged me.

"There's no way I'm leaving an opportunity like this," she said, "I've wanted adventure all my life, and damned if I'm going to give it up now." Mamoru quickly gave me a smiling, rueful expression, and I suddenly realized how stupid and stubborn I must have sounded to him when he first met me. Ushiro and his two men were walking further in the room, and no one but us seemed to take any notice of them. What were we supposed to do? I couldn't teleport because I didn't have enough of a fix on the parking lot, and teleporting back to the house would just be a disaster. We didn't have that time to spare.

"They're coming closer," she said quietly, still staring at the approaching men.

I felt Mamoru tense, and I realized that if all else failed, he had every intention of trying something physical. "Don't you dare," I whispered.

"If it comes to that," he said.

Before I could think of a solution, a look of triumph dawned on Lita's face. Seconds before we would have been in full and easy view of the men, Lita stood up and hollered at the top of her not-inconsiderable voice: "It's the chocolate murderers! Oh my god, the chocolate murderers!"

The pandemonium was almost instantaneous. Screaming people clogged the doorways or cowered under cafeteria tables, while a few security guards who were on duty confronted the men. In a moment of brilliance, I called on a very large amount of power for absolutely no purpose besides creating the overpowering smell of chocolate. As I had expected, that increased people's panic. The security guards, now backed up by police, seemed to have effectively restrained Ushiro and the others.

We exited with the rest of the crowd and made a beeline straight for the car. Lita ran after us, and I didn't even bother to object when she jumped in the back seat. We didn't exactly speed out of the parking lot, but no one seemed inclined to take notice of us during the fifteen minute back-up. Still, we were all dead silent until we made it onto the highway. I let the car hit eighty, breathing a heartfelt sigh of relief. Mamoru smiled a little, and reached for my hand. Behind us, Lita let out a holler and shook her head in the wind.

"That was close! Bet you're glad that I saved your asses back in there, huh? I can't believe that you're really being chased by the chocolate murderers! That's so cool! You think they'll get away again?"

"Probably," I said. "Lita, thank you very much for helping us, but you have got to get out of this car. It's just not safe. The next rest stop we come to, I'll drop you off, and you can harass someone else--"

"Serena," Mamoru said, "we can't leave her now."

"I knew you would help me!" Lita said.

"Why the hell not?" I asked.

"Ushiro and his men saw her. They probably saw her leaving with us. If I know Ushiro, that's enough to put her on his blacklist, too. She's safer with us than she is alone."

I began to protest, but then realized that he was right. "Oh fine," I said, and removed my hand from his.

---------------------

"You know," Lita said an hour later, after we had calmed down a little, "I don't even know your names."

"I'm Serena," I said, "and your admirer over here is called Mamoru."

"Mamoru? That sounds foreign. Where are you from?"

"Someplace very far away," he said, and his tone made me smile despite myself. In the corner of my eye I saw him turn towards me, hesitantly, and then turn away again.

"Wow, you guys are really mysterious, aren't you? So, I suppose you're lovers, huh?"

"Yes," Mamoru said, startling me.

"Wow," Lita said, "Serena, you have got to be the luckiest woman in the world."

"Maybe not," Mamoru said, "but I might just be the luckiest man..."

I grinned. "So, Lita," I said, "why don't you tell us why you're running away."

"Oh, that." She sobered a little. "Well, my parents wanted me to marry this guy. See, I'm from this little hick town in Virginia, and I swear they haven't figured out it's past 1920, let alone the new millennium. We lived on this farm, but profits were sliding, and my parents wanted to merge with our neighbors' farm. Except, they decided that I had to marry their son. I mean, Billy Harris isn't a bad guy, I suppose, but he isn't very intelligent. His parents pulled him out of school in fifth grade. We were friends, but he didn't want to marry me, and I definitely didn't want to marry him. You think I want to spend my life popping out babies and cooking food on a farm that hasn't changed since the industrial revolution? No way! And that's what I told my parents, but they wouldn't listen to me. I wanted to go to college, but they wouldn't listen to that either. So, they planned the wedding. I went along with it at first because I was afraid of what they would do if I refused. I guess I didn't know what I would do if I left, so I stayed. And the wedding got closer and closer, and my mom made me a wedding dress, and I began to realize that I just couldn't go through with it. Well, actually it took me a while to realize it. The wedding...well, the wedding date is today."

"Today! When did you run away?" I asked.

"This morning. See, I was lying in my room, and it was about dawn, and no one was up yet. And I thought to myself: 'Lita, you know you can't do this. You have to get the hell out of here before anyone notices something.' See, I knew I was cut out for more than this. I wanted adventure, you know? I wanted a life! So, I folded up my mom's dress, wrote my family a note, and put on this outfit. I don't usually wear clothes like this, but they were the only normal clothes I had. They belonged to Billy's younger sister. I caught up with a trucker, and that's how I got here."

Her story made me wonder what I would have done in a similar situation. I admired her for doing it.

"You are aware that you are stuck with us, now, for better or for worse?"

"This whole running away thing has worked out way better than I had hoped."

"You're insane," I said, but if she was, then we all were.

---------------------

We stopped in North Carolina, I think, although it could have been southern Virginia. We stayed in a hotel in one of those depressing towns that simply exist for people to drive through. The hotel was nondescript, mid-range, and when we asked about rooms, they said they only had one free for the night. I didn't like it but signed the occupancy form anyway. I was too exhausted to search for another hotel with two rooms. The lady at the desk gave me the keys, and Mamoru and I went back outside to get Lita. We grabbed our stuff and carried it up the stairs, since the fine establishment did not have a working elevator. The room was clean, at least, and I could not have cared less about the lack of amenities. I dropped my bags and collapsed on the bed, sighing deeply.

"You can't be that tired," said Lita. She was popping the marshmallows into her mouth with one hand, and opening a jumbo chocolate bar with the other.

"Just wait till you're older," I said, wincing. Mamoru sat down next to me.

"Come on! You can't be more than twenty-two, twenty-three years old!"

"I'm twenty-two, I'll have you know," I said.

"Although her age can be deceiving, at times," Mamoru said, "sometimes she acts like she's eleven."

"Hey!" I waved my fist in his general direction. "Look at you! This mighty twenty-five year old is about as mature as my sixteen year old cousin."

"And how is that, exactly?" he asked.

"Your taste in women seems to focus on quantity, not quality."

"I resent that!" Lita said, smiling ruefully.

"Oh, it wasn't a slur about you, Lita. Just my sexually focused friend over here."

"I'm just your friend now, am I?" Mamoru said, leaning over me and pinning me underneath him.

"Well, yes." I squirmed, but he held me firmly. "If you're going to lust after every other girl you see, Mamo-chan..."

"You know I wasn't doing that," he said.

Did I? Perhaps I was being paranoid, but...he stopped my thoughts with his mouth, wrapping his arms gently around my back. He ended the kiss a few seconds later, and I had to blink a few times before the room stopped swaying.

"Satisfied?" he asked.

"Oh wow." Lita sighed, holding her heart for dramatic effect. "I'm glad I didn't marry Billy! I'm not going to settle for anything less than what you have."

But what did we have?

---------------------

Mamoru and I squished together on one bed while Lita slept on the other. Not like I minded squishing with Mamoru, of course. They fell asleep quickly, but although I was exhausted, I couldn't seem to drop off so easily. The knowledge that Lita was sleeping in the next bed filled me with self-doubt and an inexplicable jealousy. I knew intellectually that Mamoru had done nothing to indicate that he was at all interested in her, but I still didn't quite trust him. Or, that wasn't exactly right, I didn't quite trust myself. I suppose that I was really afraid of waking up one morning only to find that Mamoru had come to his senses, that he had left me and gone on to more beautiful, more intelligent and generally better women than I could ever hope to become. I couldn't imagine what had attracted him to me in the first place.

It was raining outside, a steady pounding of heavy rain on the roof accompanied by the crash of thunder. The ground shuddered at each impact, but Mamoru didn't stir. Carefully, I extricated myself from his arms and walked to the porch. I opened the sliding doors and stepped through, closing them behind me. A harsh wind slapped my face with sprays of icy water. My nightgown soaked through immediately, and I started shivering with the cold. I made no move to leave, however, preferring the abrasive attack of the elements to my circular thoughts back on the bed. Away from the safety and warmth of the room, the intensity of the storm was suddenly frightening. Perhaps if I could face this, I thought, I could stop being so jealous of every girl who admired Mamoru. The wind drove the rain into my face and eyes, but I still stared blindly at the haze of red and yellow neon signs.

I don't know how long I stood there, but my teeth were chattering uncontrollably when I heard the door open behind me. I whirled around and found myself face to face with Mamoru. He closed the door, and then took me by my shoulders, using his body to shield me a little from the rain.

"What are you doing out here?"

"Thinking," I said, forcing it out between my teeth.

"You're going to get sick. It's really cold out here."

Thunder shook the ground, but I resisted the urge to run into his arms.

"What's wrong, Serena?"

"You!" I said, balling my hands into fists. "I never know about you! Why are you with me? What possible reason do you have to stay with me? You could have anyone...anyone at all..." I turned away, surprised by the tears I felt coursing down my cheeks.

He held my hands and drew me as close to him as I would allow. "Please...don't do this to yourself. I hate seeing you do this to yourself."

"Answer my question!"

"Serena," he said helplessly, "I'm with you because I want to be. Because I can't imagine myself with anyone else. I don't want anyone else." Overwhelmed, I let him hold me. I breathed the scent of him deeply until I was heady with it, like a drug.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. Sorry for doubting him, sorry for even now wondering what possible appeal I could have.

"So am I," he said, but I didn't know why. A particularly vicious wind ripped right through my thin, wet nightgown. "You're still shivering," he said. He picked me up and carried me to the bathroom, setting me gently down on the counter. I peeled off my wet clothes and dried myself off with a towel.

"You're wet too," I said.

Looking down as if he had just remembered, he took off his pants, leaving me with the shock and admiration I always felt when viewing his naked body. He smiled at me a little, and then went into the room to fetch my bag. He handed me one of my large tee shirts while he put on a pair of his new boxers.

"Are you okay, now?" he asked after I had fumbled my way inside the tee shirt. I nodded. I got off the counter myself, but swayed unsteadily once I stood up, and Mamoru caught me before I fell.

"It's okay," I said, "I'm just tired."

But he carried me silently back to the bed before climbing in beside me. He held me until I stopped shivering, and I began to fall asleep.

"Thank you," I said.

"I love it when you smile," he said softly.

---------------------

We woke up early the next morning. We took turns with the shower before getting dressed. Lita borrowed some of my clothes. Much to my chagrin, they fit her perfectly although she was several inches taller than me and far more heavily endowed. Not all my clothes were baggy, but I had packed for comfort, not style.

Mamoru was being particularly demonstrative that morning, much to my enjoyment. Lita sighed dramatically several times, but otherwise refrained from comment. About an hour after waking up, we climbed down the stairs. I checked out while Mamoru and Lita went out to the car, paying cash in case Ushiro had a trace on my credit card. Mamoru and Lita were talking to each other on the side of the car.

"Lita says that she knows how to drive," Mamoru said once I walked up to them.

"Well, that's nice," I said. "But why--"

"He says you need to take a break," she said.

"I need a...I do not need a break! I assure you," I said. "I'm a big girl, Mamoru. I can take care of myself."

"I'm just worried, that's all. Why drive if you don't have to?" Unspoken were the events of last night. He doubted that I had fully recovered from that episode.

"Because I want to, maybe?" I raised my hand to slap him, but he caught it easily.

"You're beautiful," he said, smiling.

"What does that have to do with anything?" I said, even angrier than before.

"Go Serena!" Lita shouted from behind.

Mamoru looked between the both of us, released my hand and started laughing. "All right, I know when I've lost. Lita, give her the keys."

---------------------

About three hours later I was seriously wondering if Mamoru had been right after all. The autumn air blowing through the open convertible was making me shiver and my teeth chatter. I tried to hide it, but I could see Mamoru's worried glances. I kept my eyes doggedly ahead, wondering when I could find an excuse to stop so I could fall asleep. Lita saved me from having to admit it, thankfully.

"Serena," she said, "do you want to switch now?"

For a moment I was tempted to refuse, but common sense prevailed. "That's fine," I said. "Let's stop and find some food, and then you can drive."

I wondered if she knew what had happened last night. We hadn't been very quiet, after all. If she did, she was being remarkably tactful about it. I pulled to a stop in front of a Piggly-Wiggly and gave Lita the money to go shopping. Her eyes widened at the sight of the hundred-dollar bill, but didn't say anything when she went inside.

"She probably thinks we've robbed a bank," I said, yawning until my jaw cracked.

"Why wouldn't you just listen to me?" Mamoru said.

"Because I'm not a baby! I have a right to make my own decisions."

"Even when they're stupid?"

"Especially when they're stupid! You do stupid things all the time, and I can't stop you! The number of times you've almost been killed scares the hell out of me, but you still do it. You have to respect me enough to let me be stupid."

"I just don't like watching you struggle like this, Serena," he said quietly, and it was unclear what struggle he was referring to.

"Oh, I'm tired of this," I said, banging my head on the steering wheel. "Can we just not fight for a while?"

He put his arm around my shoulders and gently drew me towards him. "Of course," he said.

---------------------

Lita came out a few minutes later with a mischievous smile on her face. I belatedly realized that sending her to go grocery shopping by herself with a hundred dollars might not have been my most brilliant idea.

"What did you get?" I asked as she loaded about four bags of groceries into the back seat. "We just wanted some lunch!"

"Well...I've never had so much money at one time before. I guess I went kind of crazy."

"No joke," I said, surveying the bags. I got out of the driver's seat and started pulling out the food. "Marshmallows," I said, "Lita, what on earth did you think we were going to do with marshmallows?"

"Eat them? I don't know, they looked yummy at the time..."

"Remind me to go shopping with you next time. Let's see, graham crackers, chocolate bars--what were you planning on making, s'mores? Too bad you forgot the fire. Candy, more candy...did you actually get any food? Oh, here we go: ice cream."

"You don't like ice cream?"

"I do, I was just hoping for something less...sweet." I sighed. "Whatever, let's just get going. I want to make it to Port Royal before five. I hope you at least bought spoons."

---------------------

As it turns out, she had, so after dining on mint chocolate chip ice cream, she started the car and I climbed in the back seat. We closed the convertible top before we left, and I had a suspicion that this was largely for my benefit. It was more comfortable without the wind blowing down my neck, and I found myself dozing almost immediately. Lita's voice roused me a little.

"If you don't mind my asking, Mamoru, where did you get that scar?"

The question surprised me, I had forgotten she must have seen it back in the hotel.

"Something that Serena and I went through together. Part of our...adventures, as you two would call them."

"You can't tell me more than that, I guess."

You wouldn't believe more than that, I thought, but Mamoru just agreed.

"Is it scary?" Lita asked, after a moment.

"Is what scary?"

"Almost dying. It looked serious. My grandfather was a doctor, well a horse doctor, but he did people sometimes too, so I know a little about medicine."

"Scary?" he said, half to himself. "Only if you have something to lose."

---------------------

After stopping at a gas station to ask for directions, we finally reached Port Royal, South Carolina. I don't know exactly what I had been expecting, but any town that has a place called "the barn" listed among its main attractions leaves something to be desired for a city girl like myself. Herman's estate was located on the outskirts of town, but you could walk from one end of Port Royal to the other in less than two hours, so it wasn't much of a drive.

"I have never been in a town this small!" I said as we drove through the one-lane streets.

"Mine was smaller," Lita said. "Population 300, Johnsonville, Virginia. You know the furthest I'd ever been from home was Richmond? Well, before now. So, what are you guys planning on doing here, anyway?"

"This guy has a private collection down here," I said. "We're looking for a book."

"You're looking for a book? Must be some book if you have the chocolate murderers after you."

Mamoru's narrowed eyes and worried frown were making me nervous. He had tensed from the moment we entered town, looking at everyone we passed suspiciously.

"Lita," I said, hoping this would distract him, "why don't you turn on the radio? We can see if they escaped again."

She found a talk station, but the local news seemed to go on forever.

"In other news, Mrs. Glenn Brady won the Arkansy annual pumpkin growing competition with a record 400 pound beauty..."

"Have these people ever heard of national news?" I asked.

Lita shrugged. "They may get to it. Here, listen." She turned up the volume.

"The infamous chocolate murderers, re-apprehended yesterday afternoon at a highway rest stop in Virginia, escaped police custody again a little over three hours ago. They are believed to be armed and dangerous, and anyone who knows their whereabouts is encouraged to call their local Police station."

Lita turned off the radio and pulled the car to the side of the road. We looked at each other in silence for a few moments.

"Three hours," Mamoru said finally. "How much time would it take?"

"We don't know where they escaped from," I said. "But...if they have enough power left, which they may not, and if Herman has enough of a fix on this place, which he probably does, they might just teleport here. We are going to have to be very careful when we find the house."

Lita looked back and forth between the two of us in confusion. "Teleport? What are you guys talking about?"

"I'm sorry, Lita," Mamoru said. "You can't be with us when we get to the house."

Her eyes widened, but she shook her head. "There is no way you guys are going to ditch me now! It's just getting interesting, and besides, where would I go? I don't have any money, and I'm not going back home."

"Here," I said, handing her the contents of my wallet. "Take this and go to a city. DC, maybe. Find yourself an apartment, get a job, go to school. I'm sure you'll be fine."

She stared at the money-- probably close to twenty thousand dollars-- in shock. For a moment she looked like she would take my hasty suggestion, but then handed money back to me. "What if those guys come looking for me? And besides, I'm not going to leave you alone, now. I'll just walk to the house if you drop me off back here." She looked at us defiantly. Mamoru and I glanced at each other, and he shrugged his shoulders a little. I knew exactly what he meant. We would take her along, if she insisted, but when we traveled back to his world with Herman's book in tow, she couldn't come back with us anyway. Feeling somehow guilty about lying to her, I let Mamoru talk.

"All right, then," he said, "We can't force you to go. Let's find this house."

---------------------

It came into view a few moments later, as we turned down a cobbled street that doubled as a driveway. The house was modestly sized, surrounded by far more impressive landscaping. I felt as though we had driven straight into the antebellum south. The beautiful fall colors of the trees, the classically gabled white house and porch, not to mention the sheer acreage of the place all made me half-expect Scarlet O'Hara to greet us at the door.

"Wow," Lita said. She shut off the engine. "So," she said, "how were you guys planning on getting this book? Stealing it?"

"Probably," I said. "So long as we can get inside, we ought to be able to." I got out of the car and stretched, thinking about our plan of action.

"Okay, Lita," I said. "You stay out here and watch for anyone coming up the driveway. If someone does, I want you to hide yourself somewhere, and if it's the chocolate murderers, I want you to come and get us, understand?"

"You mean I can't go in there with you?" she asked.

I swallowed the guilt I felt and nodded. "Someone has to keep watch, Lita. And it will be easier to get two people inside than three. And Mamoru," I said, turning towards him, "let me do the talking, okay?"

He laughed. "I wouldn't dream of opening my mouth, honeybee."

Winking at him, I opened the trunk and fished out Petunia's spell book. Mamoru took his maps. We had to bring them with us anyway, but my plan hinged on showing it to whoever managed the estate. We would break in if we had to, of course, but I wanted to at least try a legitimate route at first. We left Lita leaning against the side of the car, her arms crossed, and pouting. I almost turned around, but Mamoru put an insistent hand on the small of my back and I continued up the stairs to the porch. I knocked on the door loudly, since there wasn't a bell.

A young woman wearing a blue flower print sundress opened the door and peered curiously at us. She looked at Mamoru a little longer than necessary, but at least she didn't stare.

"Mina I help you?"

"Is this the private collection of Herman Liverwell?"

"Why, yes it is. Won't you please come in," she said, opening the door up all the way. We followed her into what looked like an nineteenth century tea parlor. She motioned us to sit on an antique sofa.

"Would you like some iced tea? I just made some this morning. Or lemonade, although I'm afraid I only have the store-bought kind..."

"Iced tea is fine," Mamoru said with a smile.

"I wish you would stop smiling at people," I said after she left.

"Serena, you're pouting."

Our benefactress entered the room again after a few minutes, bearing a tray with iced tea, sugar and a sliced lemon. She handed a glass to each of us before putting the tray on the table. Then she sat down and smiled.

"My name is Amy, by the way," she said.

"I'm Serena, and this is Mamoru," I said. We shook hands.

"So, what brings you to this part of South Carolina?" she asked, stirring sugar into her tea.

"We are writing a book on the history of the occult, and we received word that this collection has a copy of a particularly hard to find work on the magical arts. Something about a concept referred to as the seventh moon, I believe." Better to use the truth when you could, I figured. Amy took this information in, then nodded slightly. "We have managed to discover this," I said, hefting Petunia's book and placing it on the coffee table. "It's a re-copied spell book from the seventeenth century. If we could just spend a few hours with your volume, it would be so useful to our project. In the world of the occult, as I'm sure you know, Herman Liverwell is a giant. Are you the manager here?" I asked. She couldn't have been past her late twenties, which seemed incredibly young to have such a job.

"Oh no," she laughed, "I'm his neice. He went away for the fall on business, and I'm filling in for him. I thought it would be a nice change of pace from New York City. But, about your problem. I do think I know what book you're referring to, in fact. It's one of the most prized in this collection. I wish I could contact my uncle about this, but...I suppose it couldn't do any harm for you to just look at it for a few hours. You're writing a book, you say? Have you two written anything else?"

"No," I said, "this is our first attempt. We're very sure that it will be successful, though."

"Oh, I'm sure. It sounds absolutely fascinating. If you're finished, why don't you two follow me? I can set things up for you while you look."

She led us up to the second floor and around a curved hallway that ended in a set of richly inlaid double doors. She took a key off a chain around her neck and opened them. The room was meticulously clean and flooded with light that came from three bay windows in back. The walls were lined with ancient books. She led us to a locked bookcase on the far right wall. Taking another key from the chain on her neck, she opened it and ran her fingers quickly over the spine of each volume. The one she finally selected was slim, but she seemed certain it was what we were looking for. As she handed it to us, we heard someone pounding insistently on the front door.

"Can you excuse me for a moment," she said, "I have to get that."

After she had gone, Mamoru and I looked at each other. We had to do it now, or miss our chance entirely.

"All right," I said, trying to calm myself down. Teleportation between worlds was far more difficult than within. I needed to remember exactly how Petunia had done it that first time and I also needed to embed a language spell, since I didn't want to have to wade through the difficulty of casting one on myself. Of course, there was also our clothing. As Petunia had said, all I really needed to do was 'hold onto it,' but it took a lot of energy. The more I took with me, the more power it required. This time I had to bring Mamoru, our clothes, two books and a map.

"Serena," Mamoru said, just before I drew the power.

"What?" I said, opening my eyes.

"Do you think you could keep our clothes on this time?"

I cursed, but refrained from other comment. Taking a deep breath, I drew practically as much power as I could hold. I had discovered that the book was right about the words not being really necessary, so long as you still used a locator and knew exactly what to do.

"Petunia," I said, since I knew she was still in Umeru.

I felt limbo fast approaching and was about to finish the spell when I heard the sound of people frantically running up the stairs. The spell wavered dangerously, although I fought to hold on. The running continued and then the doors burst open. For a fearful second I thought it was Ushiro, but only Lita and Amy ran inside.

"Serena, Mamoru!" Lita said, looking out the windows behind us. "They're here! The chocolate murderers are here!"

"The chocolate murderers?" Amy asked. I glanced out the window and saw that they were entering the house as we spoke.

If I waited any longer, the spell would dissipate entirely. Amy, as the proprietor's niece, would probably be safe, but if Lita stayed she would almost certainly be killed.

I know I'm going to regret this, I thought as I drew even more power and included Lita in the spell. I dragged us all across however many universes to the country known as Umeru.

---------------------

We landed, uncomfortable but fully clothed, in the middle of a road. Lita looked around in shock and confusion and I fell backwards, totally exhausted. That house would smell like chocolate for days given the amount of power I had used, and I was completely drained. Mamoru was easy to carry through universes compared to Lita--she had dragged me down like a lead weight. I knew without looking that Petunia was nowhere near us; the spell had wavered so badly that I had barely made it to Umeru. I had a splitting headache, but I was too tired to even lift my arms to my head.

"Oh God," I moaned, "Why does this always happen to me?" I noted, with a mild amount of satisfaction, that I was now speaking Mamoru's language. "My head hurts so bad I can hear it pounding."

"Serena," Mamoru said, moving towards me. "I don't think that's your head."

"Speak for yourself," I said. "Why don't you try to use that much magic and see how it makes you feel."

Mamoru had stopped talking, however, staring at something in the distance that I did not have the energy to lift my head to see.

"Serena," Lita said, "There are people coming..." her voice was disbelieving, but she also sounded excited.

"It's an army," Mamoru said. "We're about to get run over by an army."

END Book 6. Told you it was long :) Climax and denoument coming soon.