Her eyes flickered as she exited what must have felt much like a timid creature waking from its hibernation. Her head pivoted around as to let her eyes absorb her alien surroundings, brushing about red hair while it did. Her awareness came to her slowly, as she stumbled upright from the sweet-smelling long, soft, and blanketlike blue grass she had been laying in. She put her left foot ahead of her right as if for the first time and evaluated her surroundings.
	Ridges, like cliffs, raised clay from the deep blue grass in magnificent shades of brown and orange and red, creating the illusion of fire when she squinted hard enough. She began to jog forward, between these weaving and spectacularly high formations, staring curiously at ledges and overhangs which appeared to rebel against the wishes of gravity in their haphazard and unbalanced placements. Occasional patches of bright, lime green punctuated the uniformly shaded sheet of blue grass, and in the center of each one grew a mechanical amalgamation of leaves and shoots and branches that shifted and chugged so that it might have looked less out of place were it in a factory.
	As she walked further she began to contemplate how it was she came to be in such a strange place, and as she explored her past she discovered that it was incredibly vague and nondescript. She could remember only a few things vividly and certainly: her name was Lenore, her eyes were a deep hue of green, she was not particularly tall, and her hair was as red as could be. But the final one was easily verified by the red fringe that rested stubbornly on top of her vision and the strands that tickled her shoulders.
	The girl, Lenore, noted a rapid change in the landscape. What was once the soft blue grass and the tall red cliffs was now dominantly desertlike with ivory sands, broken sparsely by the same patches of green with their contraptions tinkering in their centers. Everything seemed to have a comfortable silence to it. There was no wind, and the botanical mechanical oddities emitted no sound. But she began to note the noise of feet that were not her own.
	She halted and the other noise continued for only a second before it ceased as well. Suspecting that she was hearing an echo, Lenore called out. "Hello!" she shouted, but no similar cry reached her. Alert, she continued to walk again, and she was immediately accompanied by the second sound. Her eyes darted about, looking for the figure whose feet must be the source. She could find none, however, despite the relative unavailability of places to conceal oneself. She stopped and called again, "Hello?"
	A disturbance in the sand moved slowly toward her. As it approached, she could see with more clarity the beetle-shaped creature which had been following her. It was white with specks of tan and yellow like the sand, and from its bottom protruded four stubs which seemed to make do for legs. On its front rested two light blue ovals which appeared to be eyes and out from it two long antennae that danced everywhere from the ground to its eyes. The creature wasn't small, but it wasn't remarkably large, either; it spanned about the same length as Lenore's arm.
	"Oh! Hello there," Lenore chirped. She found the thing monumentally adorable and its enjoyment of her attention only added to its appeal. "You're really hard to see against the sand, little friend." She crouched down and stroked its smooth dome of a shell while she looked it curiously in the eyes. "What're you doing all alone out here anyway? Don't you have friends?"
	The beetle's antennae drooped.
	Lenore mewed in sympathy. "Ooooh, you poor thing!" She paused, as if to consider what she would say next, but she was settled on the decision almost as soon as she had spotted the thing. "You should come along with me!"
	The antennae sprung up with enthusiasm.
	Gleefully she stated as she began to stroll ahead, "And I will call you Skittle."
	Skittle sprinted to catch up with her, antennae conducting an ecstatic ensemble of gestures and eyes glowing a brighter blue than they had been before.

	The flat sandy land stretched for what seemed to be an infinity of bland space, and even the interruptions by the mechanical greens were becoming less frequent. The silence began to hang like a weight on Lenore, who was starting to feel impatient with the monotony of the desert. She thumped down and sat upon the sand, puffing up a small wave of glittering grains as she did. She sat back, holding herself up with her arms as Skittle brushed affectionately against them while running energetic circles around her lap.
	"Where are we even going?" Lenore questioned aloud. And as if to provide an answer, the beetle began to scuttle determinedly off on a tangent to the path they had been taking.
	Lenore hopped to her feet and cried, "Wait for me, Skittle!"
	She was totally out of breath by the time Skittle had stopped so she could catch up. And their surroundings had only hardly changed. They seemed to have changed for the worse, as it were, because of the even more distinct blandness due to the now complete lack of green contraptions. Lenore was a bit upset by this. "What? Skittle! Where have you taken us?"
	Skittle pointed both antennae toward a barely distinguishable dip in the sand, then crawled into the divot's middle and abruptly vanished in a cloud of steam. Lenore, curious and shocked, followed suit. One step, two steps, foot down into the center, and WHOOSH, suddenly she was on a plushy cloud of sand with steam obscuring her vision everywhere. "Skittle!" she called in a slightly hushed voice. A pair of antennae popped out from underneath her in response. "Ah, I'm sorry!"
	She righted herself and left Skittle to scramble around in disorientation after being bumped on the back. Everything was illuminated by dim caged lights and either tinted with rust, covered in sand, or whistling with steam. They had landed against the wall of what must have been a rather spacious room, judging by the still lingering echoes of "Skittle!" and "Ah, I'm sorry!"
	Skittle, now recovered, scooted to Lenore's side and twiddled its antennae patiently. A voice hissed a slurry of drawn-out consonants from the steam. "Who's there?"
	A shadow materialized in the steam and approached the duo. "Who dares trespass on my sanctuary?" The serpentine figure slithered nimbly out of the mist and coiled around Lenore. "Who are you?" Its wickedly forked tongue slid across her cheeks and its short arms caressed her hair. Along its back rose pristinely groomed feathers which formed rainbows of hues and shines.
	The beetle clicked its antennae together to draw the snake's attention. "Oh, it's you again." The antennae rolled in acknowledgment. The serpent released its squeeze on the girl and asked, "Who are you? And why have you come with him?"
	She squeaked, "I'm Lenore. Skittle led me here."
	The snake uttered a gristled chuckle and glared at the beetle, "Skittle? Is that what you go by now?" The antennae answered with a lazy twirl. The snake continued with a hint of glee, "Well a friend of Skittle here is a friend of mine! Welcome to my humble abode. You can call me Ketz." He toyed a bit with his feathers, "My apologies for treating you hostilely, I wasn't aware of who you were."
	"Ketz?" Lenore questioned.
	"Yes, thhhat's me."
	She hoped to understand where, and even who, she might be. "Where are we? I mean, where am I?"
	Ketz replied, "You're in my home, and you're not well dressed. Come, come, let me find you something more comfortable than those," he spat with contemptuous excitement, "rags!" Lenore looked down at the gray clothes that were covering her and failed to see what was so ragged or uncomfortable about them, though plain as they might have been.
	It wasn't the kind of answer Lenore was seeking. She was still completely clueless about herself. On the path here, to Ketz, she had tried to search her memory more thoroughly, but she still couldn't come up with anything more concrete. Blurred images of friends, of family, of good times teased her by disappearing as soon as she felt like she might grip them.
	She followed behind Ketz as he slid around the steam through a labyrinth of halls and passages filled with a trace scent of must. Skittle trailed intently behind her. The serpent loved to chat. "What did you say you called this rascal? Ah, Skittle it was. Skittle here normally goes by Frederick, but he certainly seems to enjoy this nickname of yours! The poor rambunctious fellow always seems so alone, it's great that he has you to stick by, maybe it'll do him some good to hang around a human, like yourself."
	Lenore was fascinated by the snake's unique take on speech, as difficult as it was to thoroughly understand. Ketz led her around a final corner into a cavernous room filled with all varieties of colors and materials resting on shelves, hanging on poles, and sometimes drifting against gusts of steam. "Here we will find you something more fitting," he hissed.
	Ketz swirled like vapor around the room, kicking up heavy clouds of dust and sand as he checked each garment against Lenore's form. "No, is not for humans." He raced to another, opposite part of the room, "Too red to wear with your hair." He skated across the floor, continuing his absolute disregard for methodical search, "Almost, but still far too large."
	Following only a few more attempts at an ideal find, he swayed and bowed in defeat. "I can't find anything suitable." He slithered to the room's one entrance and sighed to Lenore, "I'm really very sorry. My wardrobe isn't exactly tailored to humans." As if to appease himself, Ketz wrapped a violet scarf lingering nearby on the steam quickly around his neck with a dexterous flick of his tail.
	Lenore gave the large snake a pat on the side against fluid scales, then trotted with directness toward a specific point in the crowded room's inventory. She deftly grabbed a dusky yellow jacket and an apparently aged pair of sandals, flopped the jacket onto her back, and tossed the sandals onto her feet. "This'll do!" she proclaimed, and strutted in mock fashion back to Skittle and the serpent. "Thanks," she said to the snake while holding a genuine smile, "they're really nice."

	Ketz led the pair along some additional labyrinthine passages beneath the desert into a rather cozy bit of cavern which possessed such comforts and luxuries as sofas and cushions and, most refreshingly, a near total absence of the enveloping steam. Ketz announced while he left them there, "Here, relax! I'll bring some food for you to eat."
	Skittle was content with laying on his back atop a pillow while Lenore assembled a group of cushions into a small, comfortable fortress and settled herself inside it. She mused aloud, "I can't remember anything of importance." She ran her hands through her hair, "It's like there's nothing. I don't know who I am, or anything." Skittle's antennae fiddled sympathetically. She wiggled around between the cushions as though it might comfort her mind like it did her body. "I wonder where I could go to learn what I've forgotten?"
	A whiff of baked goods distracted her from the question. She explored the odor and waved her head, attempting to vacuum up as much of the delicious aroma as she could. Skittle flew his antennae in circles of anticipatory ecstasy. If Ketz had returned even a moment later the two of them might have gone mad from impatience, and yet still the feathered snake was forced to recoil at the determination by Lenore to scoff down all the contents of the three opaque glass bowls he carried and the now upright Skittle's creatively devised scheme to trip him into dropping the items across the untarnished scarlet rug.
	"Hey! Patience! You will get your food soon enough!" Ketz squirmed desperately for balance, but found none and crashed down. The pair of mischievous ravens set upon the edibles while the serpent criticized their immaturity with sharp movements of his tongue and fiercely audible flaring of his nostrils. "Stop this! Stop this at once!" He slithered and coiled and recoiled through Lenore and Skittle, snatching up every stray bit of food he could rescue - a roll here, a pastry there, some bread over there - until he had recovered enough to fill near half of the only bowl that had survived the ordeal in one piece. "Shame on you two. Look what you've done to my gorgeous bowls!"
	While Lenore snapped to and profusely apologized, Skittle tore on, unashamed, devouring every last accessible crumb and stain on the previously spotless floor. After a moment during which he received an incredulous stare from the girl and an irritated glare from the snake, he loudly belched his satisfaction and sped back to his pillow perch, then flipped over to claim his engorged nap. His antennae twitched in satisfaction for hearing the shy echo of his release.
	"What a little savage," Lenore scolded affectionately while she tickled the beetle's belly. Skittle batted his legs against the air like to tease bumblebees, expressing his carefree bliss. "I can't really blame you, can I?" She persisted her scratching and looked imploringly at Ketz. "I got terribly caught up in the moment. You will forgive us, won't you?"
	Ketz glared at her levelly before relaxing his scrunched face and replying compassionately, "Of course I forgive you. But don't do it again." He begged, "Please?"
	She agreed and returned to her stronghold of fluff leaving an obliviously happy Skittle to imagine that his belly was still being touched. Ketz settled onto the rug in a bunch and tugged at his feathers to neaten them with his teeth. Lenore slowly began, "I really can't seem to remember much of anything; it's so unusual. I feel like I should, like there are things there for me to remember," she parried with her hands against thoughts of words that didn't quite fit, "but the closer I get to some memory, the more impossible it becomes to actually recall it."
	She paused and breathed deeply. "I don't even know what it is I should be looking for, or what I should be doing. I'm just moving forward, like I should expect to run into something helpful." Skittle propelled himself dizzily around in circles where he lay by clever but barely coordinated manipulation of his legs and antennae. "I guess I have done that, I've found you two. But it doesn't feel," she grappled with her articulation, "complete. Like it's what I'm truly after."
	Ketz nodded a nod of understanding, but he was hopelessly lost in the navigation of the thoughts, and compulsion, and emotions which she had described. He assured her, "We all find ourselves lost sometimes. Some of us in different ways from others. I'm confident you'll find your way somehow, even if it takes you a while. You must not become discouraged by hardship, which you sound like you could come to face very much of." He pushed cushions gently this way and that with his tail. "I truly wish I had more real advice to present you with. Perhaps you could consult Gregory."
	Lenore repeated, "Gregory?"
	Ketz licked his fangs as affirmation. "Yes. He lives not too far from here. He seems thoroughly learned on topics such as the one you're puzzled about." He continued while Skittle stirred awake, "He is the one to go to when spiritual matters are what you're confused about."

	Ketz led Lenore and Skittle from the comforts of the room back into the steam-clouded halls. They left a lengthy trail of disturbed gases to a large rectangular wooden door; minty unsaturated purple musky-scented moss shot out from the corroded metal bars which reinforced the object. Lenore's nose twitched from the spores being spat out by the multitudes of minuscule fungi which blanketed the earthy ground.
	"On the other side of this door is the Pristine Swamp. I won't follow you through; you and Frederick will have to go on your own. I've got this place to tend to." Ketz slithered to the door and tugged at its large glass doorknob. The chunk of wood and metal swung fiercely on its hinges and slammed against the blue-tinted stone wall while Ketz leaped swiftly out of its path. "You'll find Gregory on the other end of the swamp. I expect him to be much more capable of helping you than me." He instructed, "Just follow the gravel path, east, to the left, and you'll find him easily."
	The girl and the beetle walked out of the door and into the moonlit swamp. Lenore waved a heartfelt goodbye to Ketz while Skittle hasted out into the fogged air and plopped himself into a warm puddle to soak.
	If the swamp could be visually summarized as anything, it was a misty zoo of both crawling and flying things with a liberal distribution of vegetation. It was perforated by the song of crickets and frogs, the musical chirping of birds innumerable by their sounds alone, and the rustling of the wind drumming the tops of the tallest canopies. Fireflies hung like miniature lanterns from the weeping trees and grazed gracefully above the stretched weeds, their lights playing like pure gold off Lenore's jacket and flame on her hair. Through the trees of heights which ranged from playfully small to impressively massive cut a broad line of gravel, intruded on both sides by the roots and vines of greedy plants.
	Skittle ran out of the water to catch up with Lenore, who had now advanced quite far along the path into the darkness of the growth. His antennae swayed powerfully with the symphony of swamp critters so that it would not have been difficult to misattribute whose actions were leading who in the grand score under the moon. Lenore walked on, completely engrossed by the majesty of the swamp, in its grandeur, its scale, and its melodies. She wished the gravel path would never end.
	The path continued long enough for her to grow to regret her wish. Her sandals were chafing against her tired feet and the talented orchestra of the night was now dying down, replaced in the golden-red rays of the rising sun by the guttural growling noises of creatures who would not take a second thought before hungrily and shamelessly devouring a small girl and her speedy but doubtlessly equally scrumptious beetle.
	Lenore and the beetle crept along the path, quietly now, startling at every minute disturbance that reached their ears. Shadows zipped between the trees all around them, but the path remained clear of beasts until a flash of leathery flesh narrowly missed taking Lenore's head with its ferocious metal-like claws when it leaped through the air from the branches on one side of the vegetation to the other. A lock of pure red hair fell gently from Lenore's cheek and drifted slowly to the ground, twirling like a feather.
	The shock of the beast's attack was exceeded by the abrupt appearance from directly behind them of a young woman covered in weeds, leaves, and vines sprinting wildly by. She then turned swiftly around, carrying a sort of katana which glistened in the sunlight where it was not interrupted by leaves, and throttled herself gymnastically into the air above them. She met the same beast with her blade as it leaped again, causing a trail of crimson to hover in the air for just a moment before falling to the earth in a line before the pair of paralyzed travelers.
	The aggressive creature crashed off a tree and onto the gravel path where it struggled to its feet. The beast's eyes shone an unsettling shade of deep red and must boiled out from its mouth and nostrils. It carried two vicious spikes which seemed to do it for horns or tusks. The creature was like a boar in its shape but it possessed the agility of an ape. The young woman thrust her sword into its bony face just as it began to charge her for her offense.
	She wiped her blade clean on the brush underneath a nearby tree with a calm that only an experienced hunter could convey while the beast, now dead, collapsed limply to the gravel. Lenore screeched, "You killed it! You took its life!" She ran to the corpse's side and spilled tears onto its rough skin. "She was hungry! She was innocent! How could you have expected her to know better?"
	The young woman removed her cap of leaves held together with vines so that her unkempt but still charmed features showed. She explained, "This swamp was cursed by a cruel sorcerer. He condemned the beasts to a life of mindless slaughter, hence the eyes, which glow with rage." She held open the creature's eye with the tip of her sword, revealing the fading light. "They sleep deeply during the nighttime, but the reason the path is safe during the day is because a guild of powerful wizards enchanted it so that it could be safe; it takes much more effort to build with magic than to destroy." She added, "But it appears the animals are learning to get at their prey anyway."
	Skittle slid across the ground to the swordswoman's feet and prodded her curiously with his antennae. Her short black hair covered two gently-set hazel eyes surrounded by features hardened by toil. She reeked of a spoiled combination of sweat and mud. "I'm Miranda," she said. "And I'm glad I was here to help you two. It was very fortunate and quite unlikely." Despite her toughness, Miranda emitted an aura of genuine kindness.
	Lenore, drying her eyes with yellow sleeves, apologized for her spiteful accusations. "I hadn't realized. Thank you for helping us." She asked, "Do you know how much farther it is to see Gregory? Will we be safe?"
	"Oh! You're going to see Gregory?" Miranda sheathed her weapon. "That's right on the way to where I'm headed. We can walk together and I assure you I'll keep you both perfectly safe."

	Miranda seemed to belong to Lenore's memory. She felt familiar, but there was no clear connection. It wasn't obvious just what it was that was memorable about her, either. Lenore didn't necessarily recognize her face, her voice, or her manners, but she knew she remembered her somehow.
	But regardless of any of Lenore's mental strings she might have been tugging at, Miranda led the girl and the beetle briskly along the path.
	The sun was at its highest point in the sky when the trio at last broke out of the shade of the crowd of trees. Though there had been many additional attempts to frighten them while they went on their way, no more creatures had attacked them with any more than their piercing but ultimately harmless cries.
	Miranda tore off her cloak of vegetation and discarded it into a nearby puddle nearly large enough to be called a tiny lake. Under the camouflage she wore a bland cotton shirt on top of loose brown pants. She unhooked a strap from her shoulder which held in place a small bag bulging from being filled with more than it could comfortably carry. "You two hungry?" She removed a biscuit and a napkin from it for each of them and smothered the bread with sweet honey. She handed one to Lenore and set one in front of Skittle before nibbling conservatively on her own.
	"So, what are you seeing Gregory for?" Miranda said between bites of her sticky lunch.
	Lenore wiped her lips clean of honey with her napkin. "I can't seem to remember anything, and a snake named Ketz told me he might be able to help me."
	Miranda, with sympathetic concern, questioned, "Do you at least know your name?"
	"I'm Lenore," she responded, "and this is my friend, Skittle." The beetle diverted his attention from scarfing his food only momentarily at the mention of his name.
	Skittle swam in pleasure as Miranda massaged his antennae. "Your friend seems delightful!" She said, "I do hope he can help you out. He's a priest, so he's well-versed in white magic, apart from being a generally wise guy. Some even go so far as to describe him instead as a scholar."
	After a few moments of quiet understanding made noisy by Skittle's feasting, Miranda repacked and picked up her bag and the three continued on their way by the path. "Gregory's not far from here, we should arrive there soon."
	The fogged swamp gave way to an ocean of moving rolling hills covered with long grass swaying in the soothing breeze, and Miranda's raised voice could barely overcome the noise of the ocean to warn Lenore to be cautious as they approached its beach - the border between the swamp and the ocean, where the ground was still and grassy waves of earth crashed down. Flocks of gulls glided lazily over the terrific displacements while they watched Skittle venture fruitlessly to keep steady footing on the moving earth. The beetle was thrown as though he weighed nothing from the crest of the wave he so brashly tried to mount. By his unfazed strut, though, he was probably totally content with, if not proud of, his brief fiasco of a ride.
	Farther along the beach lied an extravagant little cottage which hung precariously over the flowing earth, held elevated by stilts secured on the beach and apparently hydraulic rods grounded on the ocean which compressed and extended with the hills so that the house's altitude remained constant. Underneath the floating structure, from the center of it, was a wide metal screw which came to a point just above the highest point of the waves; the threads of it provided perches for gulls to rest. Lenore followed the drill up, where the cottage bisected it, as a cylinder protruded also from the roof, topped with some sort of intricate mechanism which presumably served to cause the screw to swirl, raise, and fall.
	A midget of a man suddenly exited the cottage as it began to wobble and shake rebelliously, belting exclamations of "No! No! Damn, no!" He quickly descended the staircase which connected the building's door to the steady beach, tails of a silky black tuxedo flailing excitedly behind him, and watched disparagingly back at the whole structure as the rods which held it up buckled and chunks fell out of its roof. "Now? You choose to do this," his volume increased so that the waves of earth seemed to reverberate away from him, "NOW?" What the man lacked in height he made up for in neither girth, muscle, nor facial hair. He seemed almost childlike in his appearance, and that made him broadcast youthful innocence like smoke announces fire.

	The two girls were followed closely by Skittle as they hasted toward the developing disaster. Flames spat dark clouds and glowing embers from the house's windows and sections of floor and wall dropped wood, stones, and straw in assorted messes of clumps. The man short of stature stood transfixed, distressed by this clearly unexpected development. Finally the structure creaked its last before crashing down onto the ocean, decorating the hills with a countless array of pieces and materials.
	The man sighed heavily while Miranda, Lenore, and the beetle arrived at his side. Miranda soothed, "Come on now, Gregory, you can repair it. I know you can."
	He, Gregory, replied, "I had just poured the last of my lilac petals into a potion, and even were they still usable they're out there somewhere." He extended his arm, which lacked a hand, to point at the rubble which shifted from place to place with the wild rolling of the hills.
	"I'm sure you won't have too much difficulty finding more, will you?" Miranda brushed a bit of rubble dust from Gregory's shoulder.
	Gregory sighed, "I suppose so. But it's all so frustrating." He rubbed the stump which formed the end of his left arm with his still-intact right hand before looking at Lenore. "Who's this you've got with you?"
	Miranda introduced them, "Lenore, this is Gregory. Gregory, Lenore." She explained, "Lenore seems to have lost her memory, and Ketz thought you might be able to help her."
	Gregory nodded assuringly. "Of course, I know how to treat an amnesiac," he frowned, "but things I needed were in my cottage." He said to Lenore, "If I can just find some lilacs I'll be able to fix this mess. I'd be happy to accommodate you if you'll come with me while I find some."
	"That would be just fine!" Lenore was bright with optimism; she wondered what kinds of interesting and wonderful things she would remember when Gregory could help her. She also pondered the possibility of recalling more unpleasant memories, but she chose not to dwell on it.
	Miranda gave them a wave and said, "You three be careful now." She gave Skittle a farewell rub of the antennae, "Lenore, don't you worry, you're in good hands." Then with a jesting sternness to Gregory, "Don't let anything happen to her or her friend, I've grown quite attached."
	Skittle sprinted some desperate circles around Miranda begging her to give him more antennae love until she gave in. "Goodbye, little guy," she chuckled from his antics before walking past them along the beach. "Goodbye!" She showed her regret for having to go on with the heavy motion of her hand, and would have also with her watering eyes had she looked back.
	"Well then, let's get going, shall we!" Gregory hopped into a playful sprint perpendicular to the beach. Lenore quickly overcame her surprise at the small man's abundance of energy and followed him back onto the swampland, with Skittle running excitedly beside. They traveled only a brief distance before Gregory led his pursuers into a damp cave with a barely drizzle seeping from its ceiling, the whole of it lit by an aquarium which spanned the wall on one side of the only somewhat deep opening, filled by glowing fishes and luminescent mosses. Stripes of neon lights occupying hues across baby blue to sea green and pleasant orange danced across the cave wall, creating a mosaic cinema of beauty which contrasted sharply with the omnipresent sell of rot.
	The extraordinary cave contained an apparatus armed with tens of legs and probably  hundreds of joints which linked not only the legs and the pieces which did for feet but also an apparently greatly flexible torso, if they could really all be counted. Through the thing's peeling coat of white paint a bunch of wet and brittle wood could be seen; it was undoubtedly the source of the stench which so maliciously battered the trio's perception. Skittle was visibly the most affected by the smell, his sensitive antennae flailing as if to detach from his very body for want to escape the odor.
	"What is this?" Lenore questioned, but her voice seemed to evade Gregory's ears; he was occupied tinkering with the intricate legged device.
	He requested without altering his attention, "Would you hand me one of those vials?" His stub directed Lenore to a space in the wall to which an equally rotten cabinet was secured. She walked to it and looked back at the man, absorbed with his adjustments here and there to the organized clump of half-white wood, then held her nose to save it from any aggressive scents which might be hiding inside the cabinet. She pulled the single door open to reveal an uncountable number of tiny vials about the size of her thumb, all holding a liquid that might have been some shade of purple or pink, but it was difficult to judge with the variety of colors bouncing through it from the wall opposite.
	Gregory's hand opened and closed demandingly so that Lenore grabbed a vial from the cabinet, shut it gently for fear that it could disintegrate from the smallest shock, and proceeded to hand the glass piece topped with a crumb of cork to him.
	His dark tuxedo shone with color as he snatched the vial from Lenore and stood fast. He plucked the sealing cork from the glass with the single hand, allowing a bit of rose gas to rise out of it. He whipped his head back and threw the contents of the vial, whose color Lenore still could not clearly discern, down his throat.
	Gregory's hand began to glow intensely violet and red so that the accompanying lights from the aquarium felt pale and mundane in comparison. Without so much as a wink to Lenore to seek prideful attention he put his hand up, wiggled his fingers, and muttered some incomprehensible words which bathed the rocky hole in a deluge of opaque light and raw energy. When the veil of white-hot violet finished fading gradually away, the cave smelled of freshly severed wood and even the air tasted tan. The cabinet, the contraption, and the tools littering the corners and crevices all appeared as new in the glittering light of the aquatic things, and emanated a feint violet glow that was felt more than seen.
	"Alright, we're ready to go!" Gregory jumped onto a seat on the spine of the wholly white machine while snatching a small bag from the corner against the wall and invited Lenore and Skittle, who was thoroughly enthralled by the new absence of rancid reek, to join him.

	The trio set off, riding atop the dynamic wooden contraption which clicked and skewed and groaned with every foot it set down, which it did at a rate of many per second. While in the cave the thing had appeared quite compact, in the open it was allowed to expand its joints, though imperceptibly slowly, so that now Lenore was only thinly beginning to feel concern for what would befall them would any of them tumble off the relentlessly moving wooden beast. The elevation made her feel like a frog left to boil. Meanwhile, Skittle periled carelessly from piece to piece, performing precarious acrobatics, his blue eyes glimmering with excitement and curiosity.
	The intricate wooden thing shifted toward the beach with a swiftness astonishing for its jumbled design. Gregory guided the craft by pedaling an axle located between two joints of the spine and manipulating a collection of levers on the right side of him. It glided smoothly along the swampland then finally encountered the beach, where they could again see the wreckage of Gregory's cottage fluctuating up and down with the earthen tide.
	Gregory shouted above the crashing of the waves, "Hold tight!"
	The legs climbed onto a wave as it crushed the beach beneath it, and scaled up to its top which was rapidly becoming its bottom. The flurry of feet transported the machine and its passengers slowly at first across the angry sea, but picked up speed as the going became more flat and easier on Gregory's circling knees.
	A sea of gentle hills stretched indefinitely in front of them and the swamp converged with the horizon behind them. A soft breeze pulled at Lenore's hair and jacket, swept askew Gregory's tuxedo, and played against Skittle's slightly seasick antennae. 
	Lenore brushed her hair away from her eyes. "How long will it take to get there?" The strands refused to cooperate and submitted to the wind, covering her face all over again in a net of red.
	"The island we're headed for is only a short distance away. We're going much faster on this machine than we probably seem; I assure you we'll be there in no time at all." Gregory pulled and checked a compass from his bag against a pocketwatch and the sky. He added, "We're still right on course. We ought to be there before an hour is spent."
	"Will it be difficult to help me remember?" The girl looked across the unending mass of sea at the sun, which was perhaps three-quarters through its daily journey across the pale sheet on which it rested. There were no clouds in the sky here, and the pleasant tone of it reverberated against the flowing grass, giving the tops of some waves the appearance of sapphires.
	Gregory replied, "Only somewhat, it's mostly just a matter of having the right supplies. Don't worry, I'll be perfectly able."
	He struggled to manage the levers with his elbow as he patted her cheek with his hand. She looked downward, unable to properly carry the weight of her thoughts. He comforted, "Come on dear, it'll be all right."
	"But what if I don't remember anything purposeful? What am I supposed to go and do?" Skittle, sensing her distress, came sympathetically, yet dizzily, to her side. "I'm so afraid that it'll turn up meaningless."
	"It's not something you need to worry about," he assured as the contraption began to bob from some turbulence, "the dream will fade soon enough, and then we will be able to achieve our real purpose."

	The statement would have hit Lenore harder than a freight train, if it hadn't missed. "What?"
	Gregory flipped some levers with his one hand then elaborated, using motion of his other arm for emphasis. "This world is only temporary, you know. When the dreamer -"
	Lenore barked, interrupting, "Dreamer?"
	"Yes, we're living inside a dream, you know." He continued after a pause so that Lenore could absorb the information, but it was clear she wasn't.
	"You're joking. Right? You're surely joking."
	Gregory insisted, "Of course not."
	"Mistaken?" Lenore pleaded.
	He repeated, "Of course not."
	An expression of baffled confusion swam along Lenore's blank face. She asked, "But how do you know?"
	Gregory turned to face forward, playing wildly with his levers to compensate for an increase in roughness of the flowing terrain. He said while he worked, "It's faith, dear. it's just something you must believe."
	Lenore pressed, "But that's not really saying anything, is it? No matter how hard or how determinedly I believe that the sky is a sickly shade of green, it's not going to be." She followed her statement with a glance at the sky as if to verify her argument.
	"You'd be surprised," Gregory responded.
	While Lenore pondered a counter, Skittle began prancing up and down like he was made of rubber. Gregory bellowed, or, as it were with his small stature, nearly squealed, "Land ho!" He manipulated several levers with a series of actions easily interpretable as a single swing of his arm as they rode on waves which carried them toward the beach of an island rapidly extending in breadth.
	"The landing is going to be jarring. You might want to hold on to something!" Lenore had already heeded the advice instinctively with the growing aggression of the tide, but Skittle rebelled gleefully, enjoying the rattling and being tossed about. That the beetle still had not tumbled off the contraption at some point along the ride came to Lenore's mind as evidence that it must be some kind of dream because the fact was so comically absurd.
	The patter of the wooden device's feet climbed the crest of one last wave before descending onto the beach, allowing the earth to continue its grinding of the sand behind them. Gregory piloted the thing into a cave not at all dissimilar to the one it had been parked in before, except it was remarkably dryer and smelled of minerals rather than rot.
	He remarked, "We've only got a few hours of daylight left, it might be best if we spent them in here and went out for the flowers tomorrow." The three of them hopped off the mechanical creature so that it groaned in disappointment in such a way that only dear pets can, and Gregory massaged its leg before leading Lenore and Skittle to a dusty copper door toward the back of the compact cave.
	The girl and her beetle followed the well-dressed little man through the doorway into a hallway that had been painstakingly carved into the stone. Lenore brushed her hand across the wall and marveled at its smoothness.