Hal Franklin and his friends have made it safely into Miss Simone's world. As shapeshifters, some of them are looking forward to meeting their alternate kind. Others dread the prospect.

Dewey, for instance, quickly feels the pressure of being a centaur. Miss Simone and the villagers make use of special "energy rocks" to power homes and advance technology. These glowing rocks come from deep within the ground and provide a clean, safe source of energy. Unfortunately, the superstitious centaurs believe that the mining of these rocks incurs the wrath of Mother Nature, such as earthquakes and volcanic activity. It falls upon Dewey to make an informed, objective decision about the matter.

Meanwhile, Lauren and Hal are quaking in their "smart" shoes. The village in the north is under constant attack from harpies and dragons, and these vicious creatures must somehow be reasoned with and persuaded not to plunder and, most importantly, to stop eating people! The trouble is, neither harpies nor dragons are interested in negotiating.

Hal and his friends join forces to deal with these serious issues. Together, with their individual talents, they can conquer any problem! They end up in the heart of dragon country, down in the Labyrinth of Fire beneath an oozing volcano. Somehow they must make the dragons see the error of their ways. Their quest forces them to question the extent of their shapeshifting abilities... and this leads to a shocking discovery that is likely to start a war.

Labyrinth of Fire
A novel by Keith Robinson

Labyrinth of Fire picks up from the exact moment Island of Fog left off, with Hal and his friends waking up to a blue sky on the grassy bank of the lake in Miss Simone's world. This is a special preview of the prologue and first two chapters.

Prologue

"There was a time," the teacher said, "when a fellow could easily cross from our Earth to the other Earth no matter where he was. Our twin worlds were riddled with holes, hundreds and thousands of them."

A boy of seven yelled, "You're making this up!"

Several other children, sitting cross-legged in the grass and basking in the sun, tittered and rolled their eyes.

The teacher smiled and absently stroked his beard. "Children, I'm not here to tell tall tales. I'm here to educate you. It's true—holes were commonplace. Once upon a time, our people stepped back and forth between the worlds with hardly a thought. Creatures too. In days gone by, you might have found a hole in the side of a mountain, and if you stepped through you'd find yourself in the middle of a forest. Many holes were underwater, useful only to fish and other sea creatures. Nobody knows how or why they opened, but make no mistake, children—our worlds were literally full of holes."

The children stared at each other in amazement.

"But . . . where are they all now?" asked a freckle-faced girl.

The teacher shrugged. "They closed, one by one. Today there are but a handful left. The holes have a limited lifespan, anywhere between a decade and a century, so it's just a matter of time before the few remaining holes close and we're forever sealed off from our twin Earth."

"Is that good or bad?" one of the children asked.

"That depends how you look at it," the teacher said. He looked carefully around his group. "You're aware of the arrival of the new shapeshifters, yes?"

There was a chorus of indignant cries. "Of course we are!" a yellow-haired boy shouted. "I saw them this morning!"

"Me too!" yelled another.

The teacher held up his hand. "All right, then. And you know how important these young people are, don't you?"

He paused, listening to the murmured responses.

The teacher sighed. "I see I need to clarify this. Like myself and my good friend Lady Simone, these young shapeshifters were brought across from the other world to fulfill their destinies as emissaries, to smooth relations between humans and all the other creatures of this world. Shapeshifters can communicate more directly with dragons, harpies, naga, centaurs, and so on."

The teacher plucked a long blade of grass from the soil and studied it absently. The sun moved behind a solitary cloud and a shadow passed over the group. "It's becoming increasingly difficult to live with certain other species. The nearby centaurs, for example, repeatedly complain that our mining operations are damaging the environment. Pah!" The teacher threw down the blade of grass with disgust. "Meanwhile, some time ago, certain dragons in the north started attacking the village of Louis and eating people. For some reason a wildebeest diet isn't good enough for them any more."

There were several gasps.

"But creatures like centaurs and harpies speak the same language as humans," a bright-eyed boy at the front said. "Why do we need a shapeshifter to translate for them?"

The teacher gazed at the boy, pleased. "A very good question, my boy."

The boy glowed with pleasure.

"It's not just a case of understanding the language," the teacher said. "Using a shapeshifter to talk to dragons is one thing; dragons talk in grunts and roars, and we need a shapeshifter just to understand their words. Their translated language is rudimentary at best. But talking to a harpy, or a centaur, or an elf . . . Even though we understand their words perfectly, we don't fully understand their feelings or thought processes. Why do centaurs always seem so grumpy and uptight to us? Why do elves refuse to have anything to do with us, even though we try so hard to be friends? How is it that the naga always get the wrong end of the stick when we try to explain something to them?"

Nobody answered.

The teacher spread his hands. "The truth is, even though we understand their words, we don't understand their hearts. And why should we? After all, we're human and they're not. There's a world of difference between all the various species and cultures. Our shapeshifters help to bridge that gap. A shapeshifter can talk to the centaurs and get inside their heads and hearts, fully understand them, find out why they're so grumpy and uptight, actually feel that grumpiness and understand it . . . and then explain it to humans in a way we can relate to."

"So . . . it makes it easier to get along and be friends," the bright-eyed boy said. "But is it true that these new shapeshifters are the last of their kind?"

The teacher heaved a long sigh. "It does seem that way. Our air is different to that of the other world, the oxygen much richer, and shapeshifters cannot be bred here—at least not successfully. They must be born and raised in the other world. Only when the time is right can these young shapeshifters come across to our world."

A movement caught the teacher's eye. The sun moved out from behind the cloud, and he squinted. The silhouette of an unknown person was watching him from the shade of an enormous oak tree a few hundred feet away. He frowned, wondering who it was.

"I myself grew up in the other world," he continued after a moment, "in a private school, separated from normal society. My classmates and I led normal lives until we turned eight; then, one by one, we started to show signs of change. I wasn't the first, but I was the first to be brought into this world—too early, as it turned out, for my transformation wasn't complete. The scientists were impatient for me to start work, you see, and they felt that my transformation was as complete as possible. But I hadn't yet learned to fly."

The teacher pointed at a daisy growing in the grass. "You see the flower? Imagine it in its early stages, a closed bud, ready to open. As long as you leave it alone, it will open and show its colors. But if you pluck the flower and take it home, perhaps to watch it bud from the comfort of your bedroom, well . . . it will never happen. The flower will die."

"But you didn't die," a girl protested.

"No, but I might as well have," the teacher mumbled. "Having wings is not the same as actually using them. And simply flapping them up and down doesn't enable me to fly. Children, I'm a flightless winged creature—and yet others who look exactly the same as me can fly without effort. There's more to flying than just flapping wings, you see; perhaps even a touch of magic. Unfortunately, I doubt we'll ever fully understand."

The man sighed and climbed to his feet. He took a couple of steps backward, away from the children, and gave a tired smile. "I'm afraid the lesson is over for today, children. Run along back to the village, and I'll see you next week."

And, in a flash, the teacher transformed into a winged horse—huge and powerful, shiny black flanks, with equally black feathered wings that stretched and pumped up and down, causing strong drafts with each beat. His simple garments somehow rearranged themselves around his torso, becoming a single flowing cloak tied low around his neck and draping across his back. The horse reared onto its hind legs, whinnied long and hard, then galloped away, kicking up clods of grass and dirt as it went.

The wings, although impressive when spread, were now folded uselessly across its back.

Chapter One
A new world

For the first time in his life, Hal Franklin woke to a blue sky. He lay perfectly still, staring in wonder and soaking up the warmth of the morning sun. Finally he threw off his blanket and sat up.

The campfires had died out, leaving six small piles of ash and charred logs in a large, neat circle. Within this circle, bundled under thick blankets, lay sleeping men, women and children. Some of Hal's friends were missing. He saw Dewey, Darcy, Lauren, and Abigail, but Robbie was already up and about, along with Emily. Fenton was missing too, but then, he'd gone missing the previous evening, before any of them had settled down to sleep. Hal vaguely remembered waking in the night and seeing the big boy's glowing red eyes and giant black lizard body.

All the parents were present except Lauren's dad. Staring at his own parents, snoozing peacefully, Hal shuddered when he remembered the events of the previous evening, back on the island. He and his friends had been foolish enough to block the fog-hole in the middle of Black Woods. For the first time in thirteen years, the fog had stopped belching through. The air had gradually cleared and stars had begun to twinkle in the sky.

It had seemed like a brilliant idea at the time. No more fog across the island! Confused by years of secrecy, angry that nobody had told them why they were turning into monsters, the children had refused to believe that the fog was there to protect them from a deadly virus. "It filters the air," the mysterious Miss Simone had told them. It had seemed like just another of her lies.

By the time the adults found out that the precious fog-hole had been blocked, and the children realized their mistake, it was too late to do anything about it. What followed was a frantic nighttime rush to the lighthouse, led by Miss Simone, the stranger from another world. Being shapeshifters, the children were immune to the virus—but their parents were not. They had succumbed quickly with bloated, blotchy, sensitive skin, puffy lips, and swollen tongues, a massive allergic reaction that caused severe headaches, dizziness, restricted airways, unconsciousness . . .

Hal shuddered. It was hard to believe that he and his friends had nearly got the adults killed! Even Miss Simone, herself a shapeshifter, had passed out; being older, her immune system was not as strong as the children's.

The fog-hole was one of a few remaining portals that led to another world. The artificial fog had been pumping through nonstop for roughly thirteen years, a makeshift means to protect the inhabitants of the island. Another portal lay just off the coast of the lighthouse, below the surface of the ocean. It was through this portal, this hole, that Hal and his friends had arrived in Miss Simone's world—a place they called Elsewhere.

Hal struggled to his feet. He turned in a slow circle, taking in the breathtaking scenery of this new world. Sitting by the lakeside was Wrangler, Emily's faithful border collie, looking like he was about to jump in and swim. The lake certainly looked inviting. It was perfectly calm, dazzling in the sunlight, reflecting the mountains as though the surface of the water was a giant mirror. Having lived his life on a perpetually foggy island, Hal had never seen a horizon before.

A disturbance far out in the middle of the lake caused gentle waves and ripples. The hump of an enormous water beast appeared, a flash of white before it sank below the surface. The sea serpent that had dutifully guarded the island for so long now had a new home. Or perhaps this was where it had come from in the first place!

In the nearby forest, Hal saw no signs of life. He knew there were strange, short people living there—goblins—but the outpost, a small village of sorts, was set too far back into the woods to see from this distance.

"We're really here," a sleepy voice said.

Abigail Porter stared at Hal through half-closed eyes. Her cheeks looked even more freckled than usual in the sunlight. She sat up, pulled the red scrunchy from her hair, and absently began smoothing her dark brown tangles. Like Hal, she wore the strange, simple green garments that he liked to call smart clothes.

"We're really here," Hal agreed. "The sun is so bright! And look at the sky—not a cloud anywhere, and not a patch of fog. Can you smell the air? It's so . . . so sweet, somehow." He breathed in deeply, savoring it. But then he felt giddy and almost staggered.

Abigail laughed. "I'm sure that's probably the richer oxygen content that Miss Simone was going on about." She finished pulling her hair into a much tidier ponytail and secured it with the scrunchy. "Where is she?"

Hal shrugged.

Abigail jumped to her feet and went around kicking the other children awake, being careful to leave the adults alone. Hal checked on his mom and dad, and found them snoozing so soundly that he smiled and crept away. Their faces were still a little puffy, but the goblins had done a good job of treating them, and the fiery redness and swelling had eased.

Miss Simone returned shortly afterward, with Mr. Hunter, from the direction of the forest. Mr. Hunter made a beeline for his wife. He pulled back the blanket and peered at her arms and neck.

Miss Simone tossed her long, blond hair, then rolled her eyes at Hal as if she'd just been on the receiving end of a rebuttal. Hal opened his mouth to ask what was up, but Miss Simone shook her head. She sighed and went to check on the other adults, her long silky green cloak flowing.

Robbie Strickland came bounding around the lake just then, his face red. "The bugs!" he yelled. "They're amazing! The size of them—I've never seen anything like—"

"Shh!" Darcy O'Tanner looked cross as she climbed out from under her blanket. She pointed at the sleeping parents and put a finger to her lips.

Robbie reluctantly shut up. He was tall and skinny, and his smart clothes hung on his frame as though they were three sizes too big. Like Hal and all his other friends, Robbie appeared at first glance to be barefoot—but his smart clothes included flexible soles made from some kind of soft plastic that molded to fit the bottoms of his feet like melted wax.

Robbie hurried over to Hal and held aloft a loosely curled fist, as though he was about to bop Hal on the nose. He turned his palm upward and opened his fingers. In his hand was a plain old ladybug—but it was a giant, about half the size of his palm. Hal stared in amazement.

"This is nothing," Robbie said, awestruck. "I've seen—"

"It's not nothing," Abigail interrupted, peering closely. "It's a ladybug."

"No, I mean it's nothing compared to—"

"It's not nothing," Abigail said again. "I just said it's a ladybug. Don't you ever listen?"

"Yes, but it's nothing compared—"

"Robbie, I've told you twice already and I'll tell you again. Stop calling it nothing. It's clearly a very large ladybug, and if you think it's nothing then you must have a screw loose somewhere. This is nothing." Abigail held up the empty palm of her hand.

Robbie almost squashed the ladybug flat as he fought to control his temper. His face grew red. "Let me finish! I'm trying to tell you that—"

"She's teasing you, Robbie," Hal said, laughing. "Calm down before you turn into an ogre again, or that ladybug really will be nothing—just a squished mess."

"Children," Miss Simone said quietly, ushering them closer. She glanced around, and frowned. "Where's Emily? And Fenton?"

"No idea," Darcy said, brushing herself down.

"Nor me," Dewey said sleepily, still under his blanket.

"I think Emily said she was going for a swim," Lauren murmured, sitting up. She yawned. Lauren Hunter had a cute snub nose, and when she smiled tiny dimples appeared in her cheeks. Her brown, wavy hair was even messier than Abigail's, and she had dark circles under her eyes. Still, Robbie paid rapt attention when she spoke.

"Oh—that explains why Wrangler's sitting by the water," Hal said.

"And Fenton?" Miss Simone asked, her sharp blue eyes flicking from one child to another. "Did he ever revert to his human form?"

Nobody had seen him since last night, when the big boy had snuck off along the bank of the lake.

"That boy worries me," Miss Simone said, and sighed. "All right. Just so you know, I've arranged for—"

But just then a splash diverted her attention and she glanced toward the lake. Her eyebrows shot up. "Ah."

Emily emerged. At first glance she looked perfectly ordinary, as only her head showed above the surface. Her almost-black hair was plastered against her milk-white face as though someone had poured a pot of ink on her head. But as she rose out of the water, her pale neck kept on going until it was clear that she had no human shoulders or arms—just a long, flesh-colored, scaly body the thickness of what should have been her waist. She eased out of the water and fifteen feet of snake-body twisted through the grass, glistening in the sun.

Wrangler, her dog, whined and sank low in the grass, watching her warily.

As Emily coiled around the legs of the watching group, weaving in and out, Hal felt a slight bump as her cold, wet, scaly skin touched his ankle. Then Emily rose to eye level. "What's up, guys?" she said, grinning.

Hal had seen her change into this form the previous evening, when he'd dragged her underwater and practically drowned her. He still felt bad about that, but his tactic had worked—she'd changed into one of the naga folk and saved the day by communicating with the gigantic sea serpent, effectively hitching a lift into Elsewhere. Still, Hal had been a little preoccupied at the time, and failed to notice how her smart clothes had turned into a layer of skin. Hal's own clothes became a kind of belt around his throat when he transformed, but Emily's dress turned transparent and wrapped around her snake-body with only a few wrinkles here and there to give it away. It reminded Hal of an empty snakeskin he'd found once, where the snake had literally shucked it off and slithered away.

In one quick motion, Emily changed. Her second skin turned into a green, knee-length dress of thin, silky material. Her shoulders bulged, and arms peeled away from the trunk of her body. The single, thick mass where her legs should be shortened and split into two, shaping into proper human legs with the fluidity of melting butter. Emily Stanton smiled and snapped her heels together as if she'd just performed a magic conjuring trick.

Now Wrangler jumped up. Tail wagging, he ran to her and sat on her feet, looking up with doleful eyes.

"Poor boy," Emily said, stroking his head. "You just can't understand what's happening, can you? Yesterday we were all living on the island as normal human people—and now look at us. Monsters in a strange land!"

"I'm hungry," Darcy said. "Is there anywhere we can eat, Miss Simone?"

"As I was saying," Miss Simone said, "I've arranged for some wagons to take us to Carter."

"Who's Carter?" Dewey piped up. All the children were twelve years old, but Dewey was slight in build and low on self-esteem, and often seemed years younger. However, in recent days his alternate centaur form had boosted his confidence no end, somehow made him seem like a grown-up.

Miss Simone smiled. "Carter's not a who. Well, he was two hundred years ago—the first human settler in this region. Carter is the village that was named after him, about an hour's ride away from here. It's where you'll be living for the time being."

* * *

There wasn't much to do for the next half hour except sit by the lake and munch on leftover bread. Fenton still hadn't appeared, and they all called for him over and over. During this time, the adults began to wake, groaning. But despite their aches and pains, and sensitive skin, they seemed pleasantly surprised at how much better they felt. Whatever creams the goblins had given them to smear on their skin, and whatever curious medicines they'd administered, had done a good job.

The children watched with some amusement as Wrangler jumped as if bitten. He peered closely at something in the grass, then jumped again as something nipped his nose. When Emily went to see what it was, she squealed and ran away. Intrigued, Robbie went to look—and, with a broad grin, informed them that it was a millipede about a foot long. The other girls squealed and ran away too, even Abigail, who normally didn't care much about bugs.

Three wagons arrived at last, drawn by perfectly ordinary horses and not, as Hal half expected, unicorns or something equally fabulous. Grumpy goblins drove the wagons, and Hal recognized one of them—Gristletooth?—from the previous evening.

They all shouted one last time for Fenton, then gave up. But, as they were collecting blankets and tidying the makeshift camping area, the boy appeared suddenly. He rose from the long grass some way off and headed toward them. One by one, Hal and his friends, then Miss Simone, and then all the adults, turned to watch him.

Fenton Bridges was human again. Well, almost. His teeth were stuck in some kind of animal form—fangs that his lips had trouble concealing. Also, his eyes glowed red. But what caused everyone to stare was the fact that he wore only a discarded shirt tied around his midriff. He looked self-conscious, but also had a defiant look that said, "Yeah? What of it?"

Hal remembered that Fenton had been in his black lizard form since—well, since before they had discovered the smart clothes tucked away in crates at the lighthouse. Fenton had never grabbed any for himself, and must have left his normal clothes somewhere back on the island. Normal clothes didn't magically reappear, so now he had nothing to wear. Maybe that explained why he had not changed back until now!

"Whose shirt is that?" Fenton's mom asked, breaking the silence as her son approached. Her voice sounded hoarse.

"It's mine," Mr. Morgan, Dewey's dad, announced gruffly, absently brushing bits of grass off his white vest. "I lost it last night as we came through that . . . that underwater hole. It got ripped off as something big picked me up."

Robbie looked away, his face reddening. Hal remembered how his friend, in his huge ogre form, had plucked people out of the water and thrown them ashore. He also remembered the shirt he'd seen floating near the bank afterward, just after they'd all collapsed on the grass. Fenton must have grabbed it in the night.

"Good to see you back," Hal said, as the boy approached.

Fenton gave a shrug and nodded toward the wagons. "So we're off, then?"

Miss Simone patted him on the shoulder. "We'll find you some clothes when we get to the village. In the meantime, there are plenty of blankets. Climb aboard, everyone."

They set off for the village of Carter. All the children rode with Miss Simone, while the parents, climbing unsteadily to their feet, divided themselves between the other two wagons. It was a slow ride across long grass at first, but then they joined a dusty track and picked up speed. It was still bumpy in places, though, and the constant swaying and jolting began to get on Hal's nerves. If only they'd brought their bikes!

The thought of his bike, left behind on the island, gave Hal a stab of regret. Would he ever see it again? What about all the things he'd left in his room? He supposed there was no reason he couldn't go back to the island and fetch a few things; after all, the cows, horses, pigs, sheep and chickens would need to be brought into Elsewhere at some point, so why not a few odds and ends too?

When he mentioned this out loud, Miss Simone—seated at the front alongside Gristletooth—turned and spoke quietly so that her voice didn't carry to the other two wagons following behind.

"Mr. Hunter woke me early this morning and said he'd lain awake all night worrying. He demanded that I arrange for the fog-machine to be switched back on immediately. Not in a few days as I'd planned, but now. He said the cows wouldn't milk themselves." Miss Simone shrugged. "Actually I didn't think the livestock was all that necessary. We have everything we need right here; why bring more animals across?"

"We can't just let them starve to death!" Lauren said, appalled. "And my poor cat, Biscuit, is still on the island too. I need him!"

Miss Simone raised her hands. "I know, I know. It's okay. The fog-machine is running again, at full speed, belching fog back up the tunnel to the island. I told Mr. Hunter that it may be a few days or a week before the air is safe again—the fog needs time to work, you see. But he insisted that he take a party of men and goblins to the island today, to begin the task of bringing the animals through the tunnel." She rolled her eyes. "So I need to dig out some biochemical suits. And find some fields to put all the animals in. My work is never done."

"Ugh!" Emily suddenly exclaimed. "Fenton! Close your mouth! You're dribbling water all over my foot."

Fenton's eyes glowed eerily red. He pulled a blanket around his chubby frame and opened his mouth to retort, but more water gushed out. It soaked the front of his blanket in seconds. He scowled and turned away.

It was a long journey, but the children couldn't get enough of the spectacular scenery, all rolling hills and mountains in the distance. The dirt track cut across fields and through occasional thickets, a well-traveled route even though Hal saw not a single soul all the way to the village.

They saw a flock of gigantic eagle-like birds that flew over a nearby forest, their wings beating in what appeared to be slow motion. "Rocs," Miss Simone said, hardly giving them a glance.

"Just how big are they?" Robbie asked, sounding awestruck.

"Big enough to carry this cart away," Miss Simone said airily.

A short time after, as they passed through a thick clump of woods on a steep hill, Darcy leaned forward and strained her eyes. A brilliant smile lit her face. "I think I saw a wood nymph! A shadow under the trees."

"I doubt that," Miss Simone said, with a laugh. "You don't see wood nymphs unless they want you to."

"This one wanted me to," Darcy said quietly, still smiling. "She waved."

Miss Simone gave her a curious look.

Hal wondered how a wood nymph could possibly know that Darcy was one of them, especially from a distance, when she was in normal human form. Maybe they had some kind of psychic connection.

"Carter is straight ahead," Miss Simone said eventually, gesturing to thin columns of smoke rising over the hill. Once they crested the hill and started down the other side, the village sprawled before them: hundreds of stone cottages with straw-thatched roofs, in the center of a bowl-shaped part of the countryside. It was another ten minutes before they arrived at the main gate. A lightweight fence of posts and thin horizontal branches surrounded the village, the suggestion of a perimeter rather than actual fortification. The gate was a large archway with a sign nailed across the top, with the word CARTER carved neatly into it. Goblin sentries sat at a nearby table playing some kind of crude board game. They rose and nodded as the wagons passed by.

Word had already spread that the newcomers—the shapeshifters—were arriving, and preparations had been made. The best empty cottages had been hurriedly dusted and cleaned, and sheets laundered. Shelves had been filled with food given by many willing neighbors. As the newcomers trundled into the village, the streets were lined with eager, cheering people. The welcome was tremendous, and Hal had never felt happier than at that moment—not to mention overwhelmed by the sheer number of people. Having been raised on an island with only a small handful of friends, he felt as though he were in a dream when he saw dozens of new children, together with their folks.

Hal and his friends jumped off the wagon and tore around the village in delight. Most of the people they met were friendly and welcoming, but a few had suspicious looks, some even surly. Hal shrugged it off; he guessed there would always be a few bad-tempered sourpusses even in a bright, cheerful, sunny place like Elsewhere.

Emily, Darcy and Lauren headed off in one direction, while Dewey stopped in amazement to talk to a centaur that had appeared. Hal would have liked to overhear the conversation, to see how Dewey got along with the enormous adult centaur, but Abigail got impatient and dragged him away. Robbie couldn't help exclaiming every time he saw a bug, and finally Hal and Abigail left him ogling a spider hanging in a giant web—a spider that was bigger than his hand.

Fenton remained in the wagon, huddled in his blanket, and was still there when Hal glanced back one last time before rounding a corner.

There was a lot to see. The dusty lanes between endless stone cottages were trampled as flat and hard as the paved roads back on the island. They curved around and branched off in so many directions that the village was like a maze. Hal and Abigail quickly got lost, but didn't care. The cottages fascinated them, with their stone walls, overhanging thatch, stout oak doors, and thick chimneys. The windows were small, with lead-lined glass panes; some stood open, and Hal smelled food cooking from within. Immediately he was hungry.

Hal stopped in an alleyway to stare up at the back of a cottage. A square metal tank was securely fixed to the roof, and a pipe ran down through the thatch. It was ugly, but only visible from the back. Other cottages had similar tanks. "See that?" he said. "Dad kept promising he'd install one of those, to collect rainwater. Would have saved my mom a lot of trouble, carrying buckets of water back from the stream every day."

"It would have been handy," Abigail agreed, nodding. "And it would have been nice to have the outhouse plumbed in too."

Hal looked around. "Speaking of outhouses . . . where are they?"

"Just go in the gutter," Abigail said, pointing to a channel by the roadside. "I'll turn my back and shield you, if you like."

"I don't need to go. I just wondered where they were."

They walked together, sticking mainly to the streets but peering down all the tight little alleys. People nodded to them as they passed, and others stopped in mid-conversation and turned to stare. As the morning wore on, the temperature soared and the sun's powerful rays began to irritate Hal's sensitive white skin. Abigail complained too, and they ended up seeking shade wherever they could, usually on doorsteps. A group of boys, two older than Hal and two younger, spotted them and started whispering to each other.

"You're the new people!" one of the older boys said, a tall thin person with a shock of curly black hair.

"That's us," Hal agreed.

"So what's it like, being freaks?" the boy said rudely.

The others tittered and nudged one another.

This sudden attack surprised Hal, and he felt hurt. But Abigail never missed a beat. "We wouldn't know," she retorted. "Please enlighten us."

Hal and Abigail moved on, ignoring the hoots and jeers that followed them. Hal's happiness ebbed. Now, wherever he looked, he thought he saw suspicion or scorn hidden behind the welcoming smiles. The old man clipping the hedge nodded and winked, but there was a hardness in his eyes. The woman standing on her doorstep beating a rug smiled and waved, but Hal was sure he spotted a look that said, "Go back to where you came from, freaks."

Chapter Two
Indoor plumbing

Tiring of their exploration, Hal and Abigail returned to the wagons, where they found goblins waiting. One gestured and pointed at Abigail, and she finally said, "Oh, you want me to follow you! Why didn't you say so? See you later, Hal!" and off she went with the goblin. Another approached Hal and nodded vaguely over his shoulder, then stomped away, glancing back to make sure Hal was following.

The goblin led Hal to his new home. It was a cottage like any other in this new world, but this was the first he had seen the inside of. It was cool and dark and he was grateful for the shade, though it took a moment for his eyes to adjust.

His parents were already there, and his mom greeted him with excitement. "They have indoor plumbing!" she exclaimed, her face red. "Toilets that actually flush! I can't believe it. I just can't believe it."

The cottage wasn't the grandest in the village, but it wasn't too shabby either. "It will do for now," Miss Simone had apparently assured his parents earlier. "We have some bigger, better houses for you all outside the village, surrounded by countryside . . . but they need to be cleaned up. For now, these empty cottages should be fine."

"And there's really a cottage for each of us?" Hal's dad had asked, amazed. "We're not putting anyone out?"

"They're spare," Miss Simone had assured him again.

Hal's mom relayed all this to him as she showed him around. "And look, here's the bathroom."

Hal's eyes grew round at the sight of a large shiny bowl with a wooden seat. Above it hung a metal tank with a pull-chain.

"You pull the chain when you're done," his mom explained, "and all the waste is flushed away." She squeezed his arm. "Oh, Hal, it's just like the old days."

Hal chuckled. She appeared to have recovered from her virus attack the night before! He never would have guessed that the sight of a toilet would cheer her up so much.

He tried the toilet for the first time and jumped back in alarm when he pulled the chain and water gushed noisily down a pipe into the bowl. He looked, blinked, and smiled. The bowl was clean once more, and water was somehow trickling up another pipe into the metal water tank, refilling it as if by magic.

"Indoor plumbing," he mumbled with awe, twiddling one of the two small faucets that allowed water to splash into a sink. The water was clean and fresh, and he gratefully washed his hot face. Then, curious, he twiddled the other faucet. Why have two? More cold water gushed out—but then it suddenly turned warm. Hal's mouth dropped open. A second or two later he snatched his hand away as the water went from warm to hot.

He turned the faucet off and stared at it. Then he opened the cupboard doors under the sink, half expecting to find a small fire raging. But there was nothing to see except a couple of innocent-looking pipes.

He asked his mom about it, and she showed him the narrow door of a tiny closet. In the closet was a roughly welded cylindrical metal tank about Hal's height. The tank sat on a low wooden platform, and underneath was a single blackened rock that glowed orange from within. Peering at it closely, Hal found a couple of short, thin metal rods sticking out, and attached to the rods were wires that led into the base of the water tank.

Hal wanted to know how it worked, but his mom had already wandered off. Shaking his head, he gently closed the closet door and went to inspect his new bedroom.

It was small but cozy. In the wall directly opposite the door was the tiniest window he had ever seen, no more than a foot square. It had no curtains, but he guessed he wouldn't need any as the room was shrouded in darkness even in the bright sun. Lanterns hung everywhere, the bed was springy and soft, there was a small chest of drawers, and he had a small ornate desk and chair tucked into a corner. A fur-skin rug of some strange creature he didn't recognize sprawled on the bare floorboards. He knew that he would be perfectly happy with his new bedroom, and the smallness of the square window was oddly comforting; at least no one would be able to crawl in and attack him in his sleep!

He wasn't sure why these dark thoughts crept into his head, but he put it down to the ugly remarks those boys had made. Or perhaps the heat of the sun was working him over. He lay down on his bed for a while.

Then Miss Simone arrived. After a quick chat in the kitchen with Mr. and Mrs. Franklin, she knocked on Hal's open door and sidled into the bedroom. She'd discarded her cloak, as the day was warm. "Hal, I think it would be a good idea for you to go and see Orson. He's talking to the children at this very moment, in the meadow outside the north gate. He likes to roam free, so the children have to go out and see him for their weekly history lesson."

"Who's Orson?"

"My friend, the winged horse," Miss Simone said. She perched on the corner of the bed. "You remember I told you about him?"

Hal stared at her feet. Until now he'd thought she walked around barefoot all the time, but now he realized she wore the same smart shoes that he did. The waxy layer was coated with dust from the streets.

"Hal?"

He blinked. "Sorry. Uh . . . yeah, the winged horse. Right." He frowned. "Oh, you mean the one who can't fly."

"The one who can't fly," Miss Simone repeated. "I think you and he should talk. You share the same problem, and perhaps you can help each other. Orson is not the most cheerful person in the world. He's rather depressed, actually. Ashamed of himself. That's why he avoids the village."

Hal immediately thought of the scornful looks he saw—or imagined—on the faces of the villagers.

"So you'll go and see him?" Miss Simone asked, inclining her head to one side.

"Sure," Hal said, sitting up. "But do you have anything to keep the sun off?"

Miss Simone's eyebrows shot up. "Oh, you poor boy! I forgot. Yes, I'll get some sunblock for you. For all of you."

* * *

Hal stood in the shade of a huge oak tree, leaning against its trunk, watching from a distance as the teacher plucked a long blade of grass. The children watching him—about fifteen of them, all aged seven or eight—sat cross-legged in the long grass, their backs to Hal, listening with obvious fascination. Hal wished he could hear too, but was too far away and caught only tiny snatches of sentences here and there: ". . . increasingly difficult to live with certain other species . . . complain that our mining operations are damaging the environment . . ." Then there came a loud "Pah!" and the man's face creased with annoyance.

Hal watched the man, intrigued. So this was Miss Simone's friend, Orson, the winged horse. The one who couldn't fly. He was heavily bearded, and clothed in a long robe. He looked like a grumpy wizard, except that he was probably only about Miss Simone's age.

Exactly Simone's age, Hal corrected himself. Orson and Miss Simone had grown up together, gone to school together, transformed together.

Miss Simone had made it clear that a transformation wasn't complete until all aspects of the new body had been thoroughly explored, practiced, and experienced before crossing over into Elsewhere—and that included flight. Simply growing wings wasn't enough; they had to be used, and full flight obtained, before the transformation could be considered successful.

Unfortunately for Hal—and for Orson—flight had never been mastered, and now it was too late. Orson had been brought up in Hal's world too, raised from infancy to childhood in a secluded spot within a small tight-knit community. Orson and his eleven friends had begun to change around age eight, becoming all manner of creatures including an elf, a mermaid, a gorgon, and others. Orson had become a winged horse. But whereas Miss Simone, as a mermaid, had practiced her swimming and learned how to breathe underwater, and the gorgon had used her vicious stare to turn rodents into stone, Orson had been too afraid—or perhaps too doubtful—to learn how to fly. He'd needed more time. So when he was brought across to Elsewhere, it was rather like taking bread out of the oven too early: the dough collapses, solidifies, and refuses to rise again no matter how many times it's put back in the kiln. Like half-baked bread, Orson was unfinished.

And so was Hal. He and his friends had arrived twenty years after Orson and Miss Simone had come to live in Elsewhere as shapeshifters. Hal's best friend Robbie, the ogre; little Dewey, the centaur; Darcy, the wood nymph; Emily, the human-headed, snake-bodied naga; Lauren, the snowy-white, yellow-eyed harpy; Fenton, the monstrous lizard-serpent that was so rare it had no name; Abigail, the faerie; and Hal, the fire-breathing dragon who was supposed to be able to fly.

Abigail should come and visit Orson too, Hal thought. She can fly, but she can't shrink to the size of a real faerie, and her ears aren't pointed! She's like half-baked bread as well.

Orson finished his talk and got up. He looked thoroughly miserable as he stepped back and glanced around at the young audience one last time. Then, in the blink of an eye, he transformed into a sleek black horse with shiny black wings. But instead of soaring into the air, he simply galloped away across the meadow, wings folded across his back.

Hal sighed. Was he destined to the same fate? To spend his life in Elsewhere as a fabulous winged creature that couldn't fly?

Too bad I didn't get to speak to the man, Hal thought. Then again, what are we going to talk about? How we're both failures at being freaks?

He watched the children run off back to the nearby village, then trudged after them, hunching his shoulders and keeping his face down. He could stand the heat, but direct sunshine on his bare white skin was uncomfortable. Even with a layer of moisturizing sunblock cream that Miss Simone had given him, his skin felt tingly and sore. His old island home in the other world already seemed like a distant memory. A lifetime of fog, and now blistering heat . . . It was a dramatic change for he and his pale-faced friends.

An enormous bug flew by, a dragonfly longer than his forearm. Its purple body glinted in the sun as it buzzed an erratic flight across the field. Hal had often put bits of cardboard in the spokes of his bike and ridden at speed along the road, and the dragonfly sounded much like that—only louder.

Dragonfly. A flying dragon of sorts. The irony wasn't wasted on him.

He returned home feeling a little dejected. He helped his dad move a table in the kitchen, then a chest of drawers, then waited while his mom pondered over the new arrangement. Then she ordered them to move the chest of drawers and table back again. "Make up your mind," his dad grumbled.

Despite the sun, Hal couldn't help venturing back outside after devouring a thick sandwich of cheese and crisp lettuce. It was mid-afternoon by now, and he wondered what his friends were doing. He suddenly felt very alone, even though people milled around and said hello to him. He needed Robbie and Abigail.

Instead he bumped into Lauren and her dad. "Lauren!" he said, barely able to contain his happiness at seeing a familiar face.

"Hi, Hal," she said, looking breathless. "Dad's arranging to bring the livestock and Biscuit to Elsewhere."

"The cows won't milk themselves," Mr. Hunter said grimly. He was looking much healthier than he had earlier that morning, although he still had several red patches on his face. "I've got Simone rustling up a whole load of those goblin fellows to help herd them back here."

"But—the virus—" Hal said. "You can't go back there until—"

"Got biosuits," Mr. Hunter said. "And the fog has been belching out onto the island since this morning. If we don't do something soon, those animals will start fighting for food."

Hal doubted that very much, but had to laugh at the image of cows and pigs getting into a fight, with chickens pecking on their heads, and sheep cheering them on, and horses standing by rolling their eyes with disgust.

"And you're really going to bring them through the fog-hole?" Hal asked doubtfully. He clearly remembered his own journey through the narrow tunnels when he'd gone to fetch Thomas the manticore, and couldn't imagine cows and horses making the same journey. Would the horses and cows fit?

"The alternative is to make them swim underwater," Mr. Hunter said. "Or leave them to die."

Hal watched Lauren and her dad go. It occurred to him that any of his friends could revisit the island without harm from the virus, and perhaps deal with the livestock—but they'd probably get trampled on by cows, or the horses would run off somewhere. Probably best to leave it to biosuited adults!

He spotted Dewey being picked on by the same four boys he'd run across earlier. They were trailing him, taunting him, and the tall thin boy occasionally stuck out his foot and caused Dewey to stumble.

Suddenly angry, Hal stormed over. "You'd better watch it," he said evenly, glaring at each of them in turn, "or you'll get kicked. Have you ever been kicked by a centaur before?"

The boys stopped dead, then glanced at each other and started crying "Oooh" in mock terror. "You're so scary," one of the smaller boys piped up. "Bet you wouldn't last a second in a fight with my brother." He looked proudly at the tall thin one with the mop of curly black hair. "Carl once punched an elf in the face and made him bleed."

Dewey pulled at Hal's sleeve. "Don't do anything rash," he whispered. "They're trying to provoke us into transforming. They're hoping we'll be seen as bullies—cowards who only fight when we're bigger and meaner than them."

Hal's annoyance died away as he realized Dewey was right. Of course Dewey couldn't just turn into a centaur and rear-kick them, any more than Hal could turn into a dragon and roast them alive! It was best to ignore the boys.

Still, he couldn't resist stepping up to the tall boy, Carl, and turning on his fiercest stare. The boy was taller and older, but Hal was unafraid. He put his face inches away, so they were nose to nose—or rather Hal's forehead to Carl's chin.

"I don't know what your problem is," he said quietly, "but get over it. We don't want any trouble."

Carl raised his eyebrows and grinned. "I don't have a problem. You do. You're one of those freak show shapeshifters. You're not even human. Nobody wants you here. Most people are just too scared to say so, so they pretend to like you. But you'll never be welcome here."

Hal stared at him, disconcerted by the hatred and scorn he heard in the boy's voice. Before he could think of a reply, Carl deliberately turned his back and strode away, followed closely by his entourage.

"Nice," Dewey muttered, watching them go. "If it's not Fenton picking on me, it's someone else."

Aware of several surreptitious looks from passers-by, Hal nudged his friend and suggested they move on. Dewey was headed toward the east side of the village, where his new home stood, and Hal, having nothing better to do, walked with him.

"How was your chat with the centaur?" Hal asked.

"It was all right," Dewey said with a shrug. "The centaur's name is Mack—well, something like that anyway. He said it using the back of his throat, like he was coughing up some spit, but I couldn't pronounce it that way, so I called him Mack instead. He fumed for a bit, then kind of accepted it. He's a bit grumpy."

"Did you change into a centaur?"

Dewey shook his head. "No, I didn't feel like I should, for some reason. I don't know why. People were looking, and . . . well, another time, maybe. But Mack knows who I am. He didn't ask me to change either, but kept looking at me through narrowed eyes as if wondering something."

Hal nodded. "I'm starting to get the impression that we're not as welcome as Miss Simone says we are. Maybe it's my imagination, though."

They cut through an alley so narrow that they almost had to turn sideways to squeeze between the cottages. Then they emerged onto the street again, a busy lane where carts were being pushed back and forth. Little clouds of dust kicked up as a red-faced man, sweating profusely, pushed a rickety, wooden wheelbarrow filled with what looked like rocks—but under the blackened sooty coating, they glowed orange from deep within. Hal stared, recognizing the rocks immediately; there was one under the water tank at his new home. He wondered if they were hot. They looked hot, like they'd been pulled straight from a fire.

"Dewey!" a woman's voice called. It was Mrs. Morgan, Dewey's mom, waving from a doorway a couple of cottages down. Dewey darted across the street, and Hal followed, weaving in and out of the milling people.

Miss Simone emerged in the doorway behind Mrs. Morgan. "Ah, there you are, Dewey. Come on in."

Mrs. Morgan waved both Dewey and Hal inside, and closed the door. The noise from the street cut off abruptly, and the darkness and silence of the cottage felt wonderful to Hal, who was beginning to get a headache from the heat and glare. He sank into a rocking chair in the combined living and dining room, and mopped his brow.

Miss Simone asked Dewey to sit, and Mrs. Morgan sat with him on the sofa. Mr. Morgan was out. Probably helping Mr. Hunter and the others retrieve animals from the island, Hal thought.

"Dewey," Miss Simone said, her hands clasped together, "I believe you're going to be the first to put your shapeshifting abilities to good use. There's a certain matter that the centaurs and humans cannot agree on."

"What matter?" Dewey asked, looking nervous.

"All will be explained," Miss Simone said grimly, "when I take you to meet the centaurs later this afternoon."

ISLAND OF FOG BOOK II
LABYRINTH OF FIRE
by Keith Robinson
Available in paperback for $11.95
ISBN 978-1-4495-3803-3

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