At the end of my lesson the following morning, my day took an unexpectedly nice turn.

“You may now pay a short visit to Justine Jenson Ryder,” Cordus said. “For the remainder of the day, you will work in the stables as a reminder not to offend the likes of Ambassador Cra.”

I schooled my face, trying to look chastened. Inside, I did a cartwheel. Shoveling horse manure instead of getting hounded by Gwen and knocked down by Tezzy? He couldn’t have given me a nicer surprise if he’d shopped all day. God bless Ambassador Cra.

I made a quick stop in my room and changed into jeans, sneakers, and a sweater for my upcoming stint in the stables. Then I headed down the hall to see Justine.

“Hey, Koji,” I said as I approached. “You feeling okay?”

There was always a guard outside Justine’s door. It was never one of the white-wearers. The guards didn’t seem intended to overpower Justine, but just to guide her back to her room, should she wander too far.

This morning, it was Koji. He looked awful — ashen and sweaty.

“Hey, Beth. Touch of flu. No biggie.”

“You sure? You look like you should be in bed.”

“Nah, I’m fine.”

He swallowed hard a few times.

I sighed and headed on in. What was it with guys? They always had to prove how tough they were. Ben had to be practically dying before he’d take a sick day.

Justine was sitting in front of her mirror, doing her makeup. She was wearing a pretty green silk dress and heels. I felt underdressed.

“Beth! Thank goodness you’re here.”

She hurried over to me, looking around with a frightened expression.

“Am I safe here? I just don’t feel safe. I feel like I should run away. Please, can you do something?”

Oh, man.

As much as I hated her yelling at me for kidnapping, I preferred that mood to this one. Now I would have to reassure her, knowing all the while that she would be as scared when I got up to go as she was when I arrived. Maybe it was because she didn’t understand why she was scared, or maybe my reassurances made no sense. After all, there was so much I couldn’t say. Whatever the reason, my efforts to calm her never made much of a difference.

And this terrified, pathetic Justine was so not the woman I knew. Don’t get me wrong — I couldn’t stand the woman I knew. But at least she was a familiar face, a remnant of my old life. Terrified Justine was just another stranger.

The suite had a nice sitting area. We settled down on the loveseat, and I held her hand while I told her how large and well guarded Cordus’s estate was, how Cordus was the most powerful man anywhere nearby, how we were working hard to try and make her even safer.

I really wanted to mention Limu and Eye of the Heavens to see if she reacted, but I obediently stifled the impulse. By some miracle, Cordus hadn’t touched me yet. I was going to do everything possible to keep it that way.

I heard the door open.

“What’s up, Koji?” I said, turning.

“Beth?”

It wasn’t Koji. It was Graham, looking surprised.

“Graham … what are you doing here?”

“The door was unguarded. I was concerned.”

“Oh. Koji did look sick. I bet he had to take a bathroom break.”

Instead of leaving, Graham stood there, awkwardly passing a tennis-ball-sized rock from hand to hand and staring at Justine. He was wearing leather gloves. A bad feeling started to come over me.

“Graham, I think you need to leave. Graham.”

His eyes jerked over to me.

“Stay out of this, Beth.”

He rushed Justine.

I jumped up with a shout. There was a loud sound, and the floor heaved under me. With a shriek, Justine disappeared downwards, and a second later, I fell too. I landed in mud and threw my arms over my eyes, scrabbling to keep my face clear as soil and debris poured over me. I couldn’t see Justine anywhere, but Graham was above me, teetering on the edge of the vast hole I was in. Arms wind-milling, he lost his grip on the stone ball. It sailed across the pit, bounced off the top of the fallen coffee table, and plummeted down at my face. I threw a hand out to block it, and it hit my palm.

I took a breath before I realized I was under water. Fluid flooded into my lungs, heavy and burning. I thrashed, found the bottom with my knees, and tried to thrust myself up. My head broke the surface, went under again, emerged again. I floundered and managed to stand, choking and panicked. Water poured out of my mouth and nose. Leaning over, I coughed and coughed as my lungs emptied themselves.

Finally I straightened up and tried to wipe the water and tears from my eyes.

I was standing in seawater up to my midriff.

What the hell?

I could see rocks sticking out of the water only a little ways off, so I started swimming that way. After just a few body lengths, the water became too shallow to swim, so I waded until I could drag myself up onto the rocks.

My brain just shut down for a while, and I lay there, panting.

Finally I sat up and looked around. I was at the edge of a rocky shoreline. It stretched a long way before the land started to rise and a dense forest took over. I was in a sort of cove. Towering headlands rose to either side, blocking my view. I looked out to sea. Nothing but water as far as the horizon.

It was raining steadily.

Had Graham’s rock brought me here, wherever “here” was? Yes, it must’ve. Touching it was the last thing that had happened.

Was Justine here too? She’d fallen into the hole before me, and I thought she’d been buried. I hadn’t been able to see her, at any rate. So she couldn’t have touched the rock, right?

God, I hoped she hadn’t suffocated under all that dirt. The thought made me sick.

Unsteadily, I stood up. I pried my phone out of my dripping jeans. It was dead. I didn’t know all that much about cell phones, but it was hard to imagine it recovering.

I began picking my way toward the trees. The rocks were studded with tide pools, which were full of anemones, starfish, snails, and small fish. Here and there, an octopus scooted into a crevice and changed colors to match its hiding place.

Eventually the pools grew more shallow and then petered out. The narrow beach beyond the pools was a mixture of gray sand and rocks. Just past the beach, a wall of huge trees rose. It looked almost impenetrable.

Where was I?

Shock gave way to anger.

Graham. I’d gone out of my way to be nice to him. I’d felt sorry for him. I’d invented excuses for him. And all the while, he’d been plotting to send Justine to this place. Why?

I looked around, half-expecting Limu to show up and roast me alive, but I was alone.

After a while, I took my clothes off and wrung them out as best I could, then put them back on. After I’d done that, I sat down on the sand with my back against a rock and waited for someone to come get me.

It took me too long to admit that no one was coming.

I huddled on the beach, getting rained on, for the rest of that day and the whole night. By the middle of the night, I was so cold I had to get up and jog in place.

As the wee hours of the morning ticked by, my anger at Graham was replaced by fear. Fear became terror. Then I succumbed to despair. Finally, having run through all my emotions, I went numb.

Near dawn, the demands of my cold, thirsty body forced themselves front and center. The numbness receded, replaced by pragmatism. Clearly, I couldn’t stay where I was. I needed water, I needed shelter, and I needed help. In comparison, my emotional life didn’t matter.

I’d already seen that walking along the beach would be impossible. The cove lay between two rocky promontories, and I sure wasn’t going to try climbing one of them. It would have to be the forest. Hopefully, I’d find a road quickly.

At first light, I gathered some dead wood and made an arrow pointing toward the trees. They’d probably send a tracker after me. If they didn’t, at least there’d be some sign I’d been here. Then I headed in.

The forest was like nothing I’d seen before. Huge pine trees shot straight up to a canopy far above. All the branches below the canopy were needleless and coated in hanging moss. The trees grew very close together, so that the dead, mossy branches intertwined. Many of the trunks hosted brightly colored lichens. The ground was covered in moss and dense ferns. There were insects everywhere. Some were startlingly large. Several times, a massive dragonfly hovered in front of me, as though checking me out. Lizards, snails, and frogs were also abundant.

Almost immediately, I found rainwater that had collected in a pocket between two roots. I kept moving uphill and was rewarded with more fresh water. In fact, there were pools and rivulets everywhere. Check one necessity off the list.

The pools tended to be covered with tiny floating green plants, so it was easy to mistake them for dry ground. I found a long stick and began probing in front of me as I went. Progress was slow. There wasn’t much underbrush besides ferns, but neither were there paths. Huge fallen trees in various states of decay littered the forest floor. Thank god I was wearing sneakers.

After an hour, I hadn’t found anything I thought I could eat, but at least I was a bit warmer. I sat down against a tree trunk and took off my shoes, which were saturated. I propped them against the tree, soles up. It wasn’t like they’d dry off in the rain, but maybe they’d get a little less wet. After some thought, I took off all my clothes and rinsed them with fresh water, then cleaned the salt off my skin and out of my hair as best I could. I put my wet clothes back on and settled down to rest.

I must’ve drifted off, sitting there. I awoke with the uncomfortable feeling of being watched. I opened my eyes and looked around. There was no sign of any living thing bigger than a slug. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling.

When I finally saw the creature, I froze. It was on a tree trunk right across from me. It was about the size of a dinner plate and was perfectly camouflaged with the colors and pattern of the tree’s bark. After some looking, I found its eye, which had a large, oblong pupil. Once I had that, the rest of the animal began to make sense. It was an octopus, of all things. I could see its tentacles coiled around it, adhering to the tree bark. It was definitely watching me.

I looked around and saw several more of the things. Once I’d gotten the sense of how they were camouflaged, I could pick them out by looking for protuberances on trunks. I twisted around to make sure there wasn’t one on the tree I was sitting against. It looked clear. Then I just sat there, not sure what to do.

I’d assumed I’d been sent some place on earth when I touched Graham’s stone. Somewhere in Limu’s territory — Oregon, maybe. But these creatures weren’t like anything I’d heard of.

Could I have been sent to the S-Em?

If so, maybe these octopuses were more than octopuses.

I got up and stood there uncertainly. Then I nodded at each of the creatures I could see.

“Um … hello there. I don’t know if you can understand me, but I don’t mean you any harm.”

Not surprisingly, no one responded.

“Okay then. I’m not sure how I ended up here, but I need to find food and help, so I’m going to keep moving.”

I started walking again, still heading uphill. All along the way, I kept seeing octopuses. I nodded politely at each one I saw, though I felt sort of stupid doing it.

By early afternoon, my legs were shaking. Not only had I found nothing to eat, but I’d been climbing steadily uphill. I sat down to rest, trying to suppress the growing fear that I was lost forever in the S-Em.

Cordus will come get me, I told myself. I’m valuable to him.

But what if Graham got away? my pessimistic side responded. What if Cordus can’t find me?

Then Graham will come get me, I told myself firmly. He wouldn’t abandon me here.

Will he? He was trying to get Justine, not me, pessimistic Beth said.

Pessimistic Beth was too smart for her own good. Huddled on the forest floor, I started to cry, and once I did, I couldn’t stop for the longest time.

What finally got through the sobs was the feeling of being tapped on the leg. I looked up and discovered a tree-octopus perched on the large root beside me. It had reached out a tentacle and touched me. As I watched, it reached out again.

I jumped up and backed away, hurriedly wiping my face. The tree-’pus retreated up its root a bit, eyeing me.

“I’m sorry to be rude, but what do you want?”

It didn’t say anything.

“Are you going to hurt me?”

Again, no response. What did it say about me that I’d thought I might get one?

Slowly, it unfurled one tentacle toward me. Nestled among the suckers was a large snail.

“Oh. Is that for me?”

The tree-’pus put the snail down on the crushed ferns where I’d been sitting and withdrew its tentacle. Cautiously, I edged forward and reached a hand out. The tree-’pus backed away a bit, so I picked up the snail. Turning it over in my hands, I saw the shell was neatly cracked. I lifted half the shell away, revealing the snail inside. It was still alive, though it didn’t seem to be in good shape.

“Is this to eat?” I brought it up to my mouth. “Eat?”

The tree-’pus just looked at me.

“Um … thanks. I think this is a gift. I’m sorry if I’m misunderstanding you.”

I put the shell halves back together and stuck the snail in my pocket.

“I do want to eat it, but I want to cook it first, okay?”

I sat back down, hoping the thing didn’t squish. Once I was sitting, the tree-’pus started approaching me again. It came slowly, stopping and looking at me every few inches, so I held still. Eventually it touched my leg, then withdrew its tentacle and looked at me.

It was pretty, actually. When I first saw it, it had been dark gray, like its root. Now it was an iridescent blue with cream-colored blotches.

I thought about it. I really didn’t see how such a small creature could hurt me. I mean, I guess it could wrap around my neck or something, but it was soft-bodied. It looked like I could hurt it pretty easily with my bare hands.

When I didn’t pull back, it undulated onto my calf.

Maybe this was part of the possible animal-taming thing I’d discovered on Rib Mountain. I’d pretty much dismissed that “ability” as a figment of my imagination. Maybe I was wrong.

I reached out a finger and touched the tree-’pus gingerly. It was quite cold and had a slimy coating. Oh well, we can’t all be koala bears, right?

It kept moving up my leg, which was a weird feeling. Eventually, it settled in my lap. I looked into its eye. The pupil reflected light back like mother of pearl.

“You’re a very attractive octopus,” I said to it. “It’s nice to meet you.”

We sat there for another ten minutes or so, and then I told it I needed to get up and keep moving. When it didn’t move, I slowly stood. It stayed affixed to the front of me, as though I were a tree trunk. I felt its tentacles shift, wrapping around my waist and ass.

Great. Groped by an invertebrate. Well, plenty of women had that experience, come to think of it.

“All right, little fellow. I have to get going, okay? You’d better hop off.”

From its station on my hip, the tree-’pus stared up at me with one funny pupil. I guess it wanted to stay where it was.

“I’m going to keep walking, okay? You want to get down, just squeeze, okay?”

I took a dozen steps, then looked down at the ’pus. It showed no sign of wanting down. Looked like I had a passenger.

I continued up the forested slope for another couple hours. Eventually I realized it would be getting dark soon. I could worry about the big picture — where the hell I was and how I was going to get home — later. For the time being, I needed to get a fire going so I could stay warm overnight. And cook my snail.

First I went looking for dry tinder. Unfortunately, nothing in that place was dry. Eventually, poking around a fallen tree, I found a bunch of dead moss that was only slightly damp. Then I tried to find dry pieces of wood to use as a board and spindle.

I’d never actually made fire that way, mind you, but I’d seen people do it on TV.

There simply was no dry wood. Not even a scrap.

I sat down and had another cry.

It occurred to me that I’d probably cried more in the last couple weeks than Madisyn had. It was pointless and self-indulgent. That thought helped me get a handle on myself.

I got up and started gathering more of the hanging moss, looking for the driest bunches. After about half an hour, I had a huge heap of the stuff piled beside a large tree. When the time came for bed, I’d just crawl into the pile. It was the best I could do. Hopefully it would keep me warm.

I reached into my pocket and pried out the snail. It had died, but it hadn’t gotten squished. I never in a million years would’ve thought I could eat a raw snail, but I suppose serious hunger has way of clarifying the mind. Holding my breath, I picked it out of its shell and swallowed it down in a couple bites. It was slimy and left a nasty aftertaste. I rinsed my mouth with water from a pool.

“Thanks for the snack, little fellow,” I said to the tree-’pus, which was still clutching me.

Then I sat down carefully and tried to think of something I could do that would make the next day a little better than this one had been. There was so much I needed — fire, dry clothes, food, a weapon, a way of signaling for help. I really couldn’t think of a way to get any of those things.

Something touched my shoulder, and I just about jumped out of my skin. It was another tree-’pus. It was clinging to the trunk above me. Once it had my attention, it held out a dead slug.

“Hey, thanks, that’s really nice,” I said, taking the slug.

It was intensely gooey. I really didn’t think I could eat it.

As I sat there, other tree-’puses approached me with offerings. By the time it started getting dark, I’d been given three large moths, a dragonfly, a lizard, two snails, and an earthworm. I thanked each ’pus profusely.

When the gifts stopped arriving, I retreated to my moss pile with my collection of food items. My passenger ’pus climbed off me and settled on the trunk over my head, changing color to blend in. I began to eat my gifts. The slug was just too huge and slimy, but the worm, snails, and moths went down the hatch. The lizard I offered to the tree-’pus who’d been riding around on me.

It just stared back at me in the dim light.

“Hey, I’ve taken you pretty far from your home. I think you deserve to get some dinner, don’t you?”

It stared at me a while longer, then accepted the lizard, which disappeared under the fleshy skirt that connected the tops of its tentacles. I heard a muffled crunch and wondered exactly how octopuses eat.

“You can have the slug. I’m really full,” I said, and held it out. After a short hesitation, it too was accepted and consumed.

I went and got a drink from one of the many rainwater collections around me. Then I climbed into my moss pile.

“Thanks for your help,” I said to the tree-’puses, many of which were still parked on the trunks around me. “I really appreciate it. You’re wonderful hosts, and you have a lovely forest. Very, um, moist.”

Of course, nobody responded. I was starting to get used to talking to myself, though.

“Okay, well, I’m going to get some sleep. Maybe I’ll see you guys in the morning.”