The Caterpillarian

Chapter 3

Down, up, down, up, went the door handle.

"Home," said the skeleton, his voice muffled behind the door. "I want to go home."

The sound of his footsteps and the sloshing water dissipated.

I want to go home, he'd said. Did that mean he'd left? I tried to open the door and my hope dissipated with Amatoshi's footsteps.

It was locked.

I placed my back against the door and sighed for what felt like forever.

"I can't take much more of this," Jasper said, flopping onto the bed.

Alison was sitting on the floor, cross-legged, her eyes shut tight.

The music washed away any fear I had. I was beginning to correlate it with safety. At least here in this room, nothing could get to me.

Just as my eyelids became heavy, Alison's voice pried them open.

"Look at that," she said, pointing at the globe I'd dropped to the floor.

I hadn't even noticed but it had cracked open like an egg, and amid the shards of stone, there was a picture of something.

I took a couple of steps and then picked it up. It was a picture of a man covered head to toe in black fur, holding aloft the entire world with his eight arms.

"Whoa, nice pic," said Jasper, leaning over on the bed to have a look. He loved to draw so it was no surprise he appreciated it.

"There's something written on the back," Alison said, pointing.

I turned it around. A single line of text read: Araknea lifting the world to the stars. So the man's name was Araknea?

"What does it mean?" I asked, switching back and forth to the picture and the text.

"Who knows?" Jasper said, helpfully, sitting back on to the bed.

My arms and legs ached. I dropped the pic and turned to Jasper. "Shift."

He shimmied sideways, allowing me to plop down next to him.

"This song's so relaxing," Jasper said, looking at the talented moth. "But what a weird day."

"Imagine if we told everyone at school about this," I said.

"Imagine us ever getting back to school," Jasper said. "Actually, I'd be okay with that."

Walking, talking skeletons and piano playing moths. To think I used to believe the world was so boring. I remembered back to when my parents told me Santa wasn't real. I'd already learnt the truth about the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. It sucked all the magic out of the world. Was nothing magical real? Why believe in anything?

But now? Maybe Santa was real!

Okay, I was getting a little off track, here. But as scary as all of this was, it was nice to think there were still magical elements to the world.

"Wait, what about your parents?" Alison said.

"What about them?" I asked.

"Are they gonna be able to get in the house?"

I hadn't thought about it. I could imagine them standing outside the house yelling for us to unlock the door. I'd be grounded for a month. Well, until Amatoshi Yamamatsu answered the door.

I glanced at my watch. Only an hour had passed. There was still a way to go.

"I dunno," I finally answered Alison. "Let's just wait for the next task and see what happens."