A/N: Yes, you get to read another author's note by me. Don't you feel lucky :) Well, let's just say I came up with the title of this chapter before I wrote it and let it play out how it would. It unfolded rather nicely though and I'm confident you'll find something you find at least remotely interesting. Bon a petit!

The first thing I noticed, while my mind still lay far behind my eyelids, was that my ankle was painfully hot. Smack. The second thing I noticed was that someone hit me. "Hey," I mumbled. I was never one to pull the "five more minutes" thing because I knew that my five minutes was a little closer to five hours and it always seemed to be best to get unpleasantries, like waking up, over and done with. Slowly, I uncurled from my little ball, sat up, and opened my eyes.

What the… I had a strange sensation of déjà vu as it dawned on me that I didn't know where I was. Again. Suddenly, the memory of the stained glass room, Jayden, Eldon, and the cheesecake exploded in my mind. "Jayden? Eldon?" I cried out.

"Hmm?"

I looked around behind me and my eyes were met with a shocking, but not unwelcome, sight. Imagine every ridiculously attractive man from every Jane Austen book out there and give him a perfect jaw line, hair, and eyes and change his age to that of roughly a junior in high school. That is what greeted my eyes, tailcoat and all (though his clothes were rather rumpled and dirty, but that's understandable considering how long it must've been since they could've been cleaned). I blinked a few times.

"What?" he asked, concern clouding his blue eyes.

"Are you Jayden?" I asked. Well, maybe it was a stupid question seeing as I recognized his voice, but I could hardly believe that he was the ill tempered man I'd met in the dungeon of the stained glass building. He had been the person helping me limp around down there.

"Yes," he answered slowly, "I'm pretty sure we've already been introduced though," he said with a smile.

I took this time to stop gawking at him and looked at our surroundings.

It seemed to be that we were in a forest of holly trees. "Where are we?" I asked, hoping that he'd know. I hated this feeling of being lost.

"Holly Forest," he replied, brushing through his dark brown hair with his fingers.

What a creative name, I thought dryly as I glanced at the trees again.

"Where's Eldon?" I inquired after noticing his absence.

"Erm, well, your guess is as good as mine. I just came around myself," Jayden admitted as he plucked out dead leaf from his hair.

"Great," I sighed. While looking away from him for a moment, I ascertained that it did not look like it was going to rain. That's a plus, I thought weakly. Smack.

"What was that for?" I exclaimed.

"The butterflies," Jayden responded.

I felt my eyebrows raise questioningly while my cheeks began to redden in embarrassment. I certainly had felt butterflies in my stomach when I first had glimpsed Jayden, but really it wasn't anything—

Smack!

"What?" I yelled in frustration. I felt like I did at the first mention of the cheesecake. What was he talking about?

"The butterflies," he insisted as he pulled something off the back of my shirt where he'd hit me. I turned my body, wincing at the still present pain in my ankle, to get a better look at what he held in his hand.

Indeed it was a butterfly, but I'd never seen one that looked like this. Its wings flashed bright red and gold at us and the edges of the wings almost seemed to glow like dying embers. I reached out my finger to touch the beautiful creature.

"It's still hot," warned Jayden.

"It's still what?"

"The edge of the wings," he said, pointing to them.

I watched curiously as the wings seemed to blacken, and then gray from the outside in. My finger brushed the soft wing and I was startled to feel it crumbled to ash. My puzzled brown gaze met Jayden's studying blue one.

"The burning butterflies of Holly Forest," he said, "see, there's a live one there."

Sure enough, his pointing finger led to a butterfly, its flaming wings dancing daringly in the air. My breath caught in my throat for a moment and we watched as it floated away, its shining red and gold wings blazing with small flames.

Silence settled between us with relative comfort; however, I began to feel restless from sitting and pushed myself off the ground into a standing position. Of course, by this time I'd forgotten about my injured ankle and promptly found myself reminded as I fell to the ground. "Ouch," I muttered between gritted teeth.

"Need help?" Jayden asked, amusement glinting in his eyes, obviously finding my struggle to stand up humorous.

"No thank you," I replied curtly, brushing dirt off my jeans.

Jayden opened his mouth to respond, but was cut off by some off-key singing nearby.

"Eldon?" Jayden called out, looking towards the noise.

"And if you could fiddle a nice dandy riddle," an aged, yet strikingly loud voice sang out, "I'd give you: quite nice rice and stones." Through the red speckled trees I saw a short old man walking towards us, dressed similarly to Jayden. His silver streaked hair was in complete disarray, but it suited him. "Ah, Jayden," the old man greeted Jayden heartily, "I've good news. We're by the Coral River."

Jayden's somewhat pleased expression dimmed at once. "Good news? How is that good? The Coral River is miles away from any civilization!"

"It certainly is," Eldon agreed, "but do you know what else is miles from civilization?"

Jayden gave the elderly man a strange look before something clicked in his mind. "Your mother!"

Now, reader, do not mistake this for another stupid "your mom" joke. It certainly would've made a nice and ridiculous one, but, in truth, it was a fact. Eldon's mother lived near the Coral River, miles from civilization.

Jayden stood up and offered me his hand in a gentlemanly manner; I almost contemplated refusing it, but I certainly couldn't walk on my own and Eldon looked like the kind of old man who would frequently complain about his back problems just to get out of doing any sort of task. I grasped his hand, pulled myself up, and we situated ourselves to travel in a manner similar to that in the mansion.

While in the darkness of the dungeon and under the assumption that Jayden was much older than I (he was quite tall), my only scruple about him helping me was that he could potentially be, to say it bluntly, a very creepy man. Now that we were in daylight, my misgivings had more to do with the fact that he was an attractive boy of my age and I hadn't had a chance to reapply deodorant recently. Despite my worries, I didn't smell too rancid and the walk through Holly Forest was soothing, pleasant even. With my arm around Jayden's shoulders for support, I gazed at the lovely holly trees. Their prickly dark green leaves contrasted sharply with their red, glowing berries. A nice effect.

We came across the burning butterflies a few more times, but we managed to avoid them. I still couldn't get over how strange it was to see a butterfly lit up with flames flying by us most calmly.

"Why don't they burn up and die?" I asked as we passed yet another.

"You're an inquisitive one," Jayden remarked, "I don't think I've heard much but questions come from your mouth."

You'd have a lot of questions too if you'd randomly found yourself thrown into a crazy world with burning butterflies and magic cheesecake so amazing that you can't keep consciousness while eating it, I thought. I would've said it, but I thought approaching the topic of how I'd gotten into the stained glass room could lead to awkward questions and answers. No, that was a conversation I could do without. I remained silent and waited for my answer about the butterflies.

"I'm not sure exactly," Jayden said as the butterfly landed on a holly tree and scorched its spiny leaves, "my sister was interested in that sort of thing, but I myself never set about studying it."

Good answer…

"Do you like corn Miss Kallie?" asked Eldon.

"Well, yes, I guess I do," I answered. It wasn't my favorite food, that would be spaghetti—the most delicious food to ever exist, but it was still very good.

"Good," Eldon said, "because my mother makes a mean corn casserole, cornbread, and corn ice cream every single day of the week."

"I'm sure," I replied, my stomach was speaking to me again so anything, even corn ice cream, sounded good right now.

"I remember when I was a young lad and one day I became quite sick of—" Eldon cut off. A smile spread across his face. "I take it you're new to 'round these parts?"

"Yes," I replied hesitantly.

"Well then, we can't have you seeing the Coral River for the first time without proper introduction."

"What do you mean?"

One of Jayden's hands came up and covered my eyes. I halted.

"Keep walking," he urged, suppressing a laugh.

"Believe me, this mighty fine river is not something you want spoiled by a first glimpse from far away," Eldon explained.

I continued walking, all too conscious of the warm hand over my eyes. Coral River here I come, I though halfheartedly, though in truth I was bursting with curiosity about what could make this river so special… other than it being miles from civilization (like your mom).