"Now can we go home?" Fiddleford screeched as a ten-headed Stanley roared through the brush behind them.

"No way. This is huge, Fiddle. Bigger'n anythin' we thought we was comin' here for!" The real Lee crashed through a patch of questionable looking foliage to catch up, his hair plastered wet against his forehead with sweat, and a giant grin splitting his face. "Shapeshiftin', Ford! You said none'a my comic books was real, but now what!"

"Not now, Lee!" Ford swiped an arm across his forehead. "Why couldn'tya just hold it?"

"How was I supposed ta know there was a shapeshifter nest behind the tree?" Lee demanded. "Natured called an' there's trees everywhere! I just picked one!"

"I dun wanna die!" Fiddle scrambled on ahead. "I never got ta make half the stuff I thought up! It's not fair!"

"Fiddle!" Ford reached out a second too late. Fiddle tumbled over a dropoff. Glancing over his shoulder, Ford saw the heads on the shapesifter multiplying and growing rather jagged looking mouth spikes.

"Fiddle's got it right!" Lee declared, throwing himself after Fiddle. Groaning, Ford followed, crashing through a pair of pines and tumbling down an embankment. He lay at the bottom, dazed and dizzied from the rolling fall. His left arm throbbed somewhere in the background, or had he left the arm behind somewhere?

Before his senses could untangle, Lee seized Ford's definitely-throbbing-arm and dragged him by it. Ford clamped his teeth into his free hand to keep from screaming as Lee grabbed another nearby lump by the shirt and dragged it too. Within seconds, Ford found himself crammed under some gnarled old tree roots, with an unconscious Fiddle shoved in close.

That arm was on fire now, but he kept biting his hand. Better a broken arm than being found by an angry shapeshifter.

"No room," Lee grunted. "Don't move, I'll be back."

Ford felt the first stirrings of panic, grunting at his twin and reaching as if to pull him down too.

"No room!" Lee insisted. "Stay put. I'll be fine. Promise." And he was gone.

A few minutes later, something came snuffling by the hole, and Ford held his breath, trying to pretend he was a child-sized granite stone the roots had grown over and around, something that had always been there and always would be. Fiddle was still out cold and had less trouble pretending such things.

Eventually, the snuffling whuffled off elsewhere, and all Ford could hear was the blood rushing in his ears. His arm hurt bad, and now so did his hand. He gingerly pulled his hand away from his mouth. His hand was bleeding now, and his arm was puffing up bad, and his twin wasn't there.

Lee was always there. There wasn't a Ford without a Lee, and no Lee without a Ford. That's just how it was. Why wasn't he there? Ford knew exactly why Lee wasn't there, but all the reasons were getting drowned out by a very frightened sob building in his gut. He tried to tell himself Lee was nearby, hiding but himself wasn't listening. If Lee didn't show up soon, he'd bust out screaming and there'd be nothing to stop him, not even a bitten off hand.

Ragged panting approached the tree, and he released his breath, all the knotted up bits inside falling apart to looseness so fast his breath hitched.

"Ford, you better not have moved. You still here?"

Ford managed a grunt, clearing his throat.

"Good. Think I lost the thing. C'mon, let's get you outta here." He hauled Fiddle out of the hole, laying him out on the ground, and reached in.

Ford yelped as Lee touched his arm. "Don't! Its broke!"

Lee's hand froze. "Ford… it's broke… an' you didn't say nuttin' when I grabbed it?"

Ford's voice was coming out a lot more crybabyish than he wanted. "We had ta get away."

"And yer s'posed ta be the smart one." Lee reached further, pulling on Ford's other shoulder and grabbing a fistful of shirt material at his side to drag him out. "If'n I hurt you, you say somethin', dunderhead. Even if it's a squawk. I prolly made it worse. Let's look."

Ford didn't want to look. He was starting to think maybe Fiddle was right, maybe they had to go home. Gnomes were one thing, but this was something else completely. And if he really stopped and thought about it, they were trying to find something that could reach out all the way from this place across the country and burn his friend. What were they going to do when they found it, ask it politely to stop?

"What're we doin' here, Lee?" He shuddered as Lee ripped up an extra shirt from his pack and tied it around Ford's neck, gingerly resting the broken arm in the makeshift sling. "We're ten. We're 'cross the country from our folks. We're bein' chased by monsters, some of 'em want a wish, some of 'em want a meal. It's too big. If'n we go back, Fiddle could get put back in the bad place. But if'n we don't, we could all die. I don' wanna die, Lee."

"Yer not gonna die." Lee tied the sling off firmly, then turned to wrap stray scraps of the shirt around Ford's other hand. "Yer gonna think us a solution. You've got the brains, always have. An' I'll make sure we get there safe. That's what I'm fer. Between you an' me, we always been able ta get 'most anythin' done. This is the biggest one yet, but we ain't beat. And we ain't gonna be beat by this. Hear me?"

Ford bit his lip. His arm still hurt like it was being stabbed by glass-beaked gulls, and it was hard to think straight, but his brother had never steered him wrong. "Just one thing, Lee."

"What? What is it?"

"Ya gotta promise me somethin'."

"Sure, anything."
"Don't ever run off an' leave me alone again. Can't take it. Promise me."

Lee stared at him for a good long while, before pulling Ford into a ginger hug, taking care with the arm. "Promise. Won't happen ever again."