Hidden flat against the stones and melting invisibly into the herringbone pattern of the fireplace, an olive skinned girl stepped forward, shocking Phillip. A dark braid hung over one eye and serpentined to her waist. Startled, he jumped back. His left eyebrow was highly arched, as happened unconsciously when he was perplexed. Behind him, McClure gasped, mesmerized as the figure stepped from the shadows.  

     The girl was as tall as Phillip, but undernourished and scrawny. Her gray calico dress was dirty, tattered and spotted with patches.  In a whispering, raspy voice she spoke, fists clenched at her sides.

     “What exactly are you doin’ in my father’s house?” she queried,  jerking her chin forward and squinting her eyes. Phillip didn’t have a second to respond.  Head down, she charged at him with toreador-like precision, butting him in the stomach with her head. He lurched backwards and fell onto the packed-dirt floor.  McClure jumped into the fray and within seconds, fists were flying as he and the girl wrestled into a tumble.

     “I SAID, What exactly are you doing in my father’s house?” Wassy Wymore grit her teeth and spit out the words. 

     “Dude! get her off, she’s killin’ me!” McClure begged, now near tears as he felt his shoulder ripping.

     “Whoa, Whoa, Whoa! Look! Miss! We mean no harm!” Pleading now, Phillip clasped his hands as if in prayer and nervously jumped back and forth.

     “Please! Let‘im go! Please! You got it wrong, we’re not qoing to hurt you. No! No! We came here looking for our mother, who’s lost and hurt! Pebby brought us here to hide from those airships, I swear!”  

     He raised both hands up in surrender.  The girl cut her eyes at him and let up just a fraction on McClure.

     “Let me up, please, leggo my arm!” McClure begged tearfully, certain his shoulder was broken. The girl persisted, twisting it further.

     “OOOWWWW!!!”  McClure hollered again. The three of them hadn’t noticed Pebby scampering out the back door of the cottage.  Phillip approached the girl tentatively, fully prepared to push her off of his friend, but not wanting to suffer the same fate.

     “Where’youse from?  I never seen ya round here, now you tells me, WHERE YOUSE FROM!!!”  The girl cut her eyes severely.

     The arched wooden back door slammed open and a middle-aged man in crusty work clothes and muddy boots stomped in, scowling and pointing an angry finger at the melee. 

     “Hold it right there Mister, do not, I repeat, DO NOT go near that young lady.  Step back, I say, STEP BACK!” 

     Wallace Wymore was shocked at the sight in front of him. His daughter, Wascilla Wymore, was perched solidly on the back of a thin, ginger-haired teenager, whose arm looked angled as if it had been recently twisted off of his body. Wymore patted the top of Pebby’s head.

     “Good job comin’ to git me, good job girl.” She shook her head up and down with pride. The fight had been too vicious for her to stop without help.

     Moving toward his daughter and taking her hand, Wallace gently helped her off of McClure, who painfully got to his feet and limped to stand by Phillip. He rubbed his shoulder and muttered under his breath.  Phillip could swear he heard a whispered litany of four-letter obscenities.

Putting his arm around Wascilla, Wallace Wymore pulled himself up to his full height and raised his dimpled chin. He let out a long and labored sigh.

     “Why don’t you boys start at the beginning. Tell me how you came to be in my house, and more importantly, how you came to be in the company of this here dog?” 

     Pebby had parked herself directly in front of Phillip, and it didn’t escape Wymore’s notice that she appeared defensive. Stepping forward, Phillip extended his hand. 

     “Sorry Sir, Pebby led us here, she was tryin’ to keep us safe.”

     “Yeah, Sir,” McClure chimed in, “we didn’t know where we were, and she was trying to hide us from the flying ships.  Sorry if we were intruders, real sorry.”  

     He continued to rub his shoulder, but extended his hand courteously to Wallace Wymore while Phillip interjected.

     “Would you know anything about a tall woman who came through here? Might’a been hurt?  Tall, kinda’ slender, dark-brown hair, wearing black? You know anything about a woman found here?  Anything at all?” He parcelled his words carefully and breathed slowly, not wanting to hear that perhaps Abby Weathermore had been found and had not survived her injuries.

     “Nope,” Wymore shook his head, “I know nutin’ at all ’bout a woman.  Tell me again, where youse from?” He looked them up and down suspiciously.  “And who be this lost woman, anyway?” Unexpectedly, McClure spoke up. 

     “She’s our Mother, and we think she’s hurt.  Have ya’ seen her? No?”

     Phillip remained silent and sorrowful, staring at his shoes. Pebby sensed Phillip’s pain and brushed up against his leg.  Lifting her up, he buried his face in her neck, fighting back tears.  No sign of Mom. No! Maybe she wasn’t in Norwall at all.  Maybe the Parallax took her somewhere else and I won’t ever see her again.

     Softly and kindly now, Wymore asked again, “Come’on boys, tell me how you came to be so friendly with this dog. How’d it happen?”

     Letting out a long sigh, Phillip regained his composure and set Pebby down. He slid his hands into his pockets.

     “Naji. We came to know her through a guy named Naji. To be exact, Naji Najeem.  You’ve heard of him?”

     Wymore’s mouth dropped open. Reaching behind himself, he carefully backed down onto a wobbly wooden stool.  

     “Naji?” He breathed deeply, both hands clasping the sides of his dirty, unshaven face. “You know Naji? Bless my boots!  He’s alive? When did you last see him?”

     A broad smile broke across his face and his eyes opened wide in amazement.  Jumping up to his full height, he put his face directly in front of Phillip. 

     “C'mon! WHEN DID YOU LAST SPEAK WITH NAJEEM? Now tell me, and it better be the truth. If’n you boys is lying, I’ll have no mercy on ye’s!”  He pointed a finger directly in Phillip’s face.

     “Last night. We spoke with him last night,” McClure offered. Frozen in shock, Wymore grinned widely.  

     “He’s alive?  He’s alive, that buzzard? Thank the stars, Naji’s alive!”  He laughed, tilted his head back and closed his eyes.

     Phillip carefully chose his words. “He sent us. Naji sent us here.  He told us to get to his tailor shop, and he gave us this.” Pulling the widget from his pocket, Phillip produced the key.  “He told us about Norwall.  We think our mother came here by accident and we’ve got to find her and take her home.  Naji told us all about Norwall. He said we could use the tailor shop as our home base while we’re looking for Mom.”

     Taking the key, nodding his head rapidly in recognition, Wymore held the key against his chest. His eyes closed tightly and he was smiled. My friend, you haven’t left us at all.  He breathed deeply and continued.

     “So, if Naji sent youse, it must be for good reason.  And, if youse are knowin’ this tiny dog, well, youse should know that she is the best dog in all the land.  Most respected, most loved, and the hardest working pup on four legs.  Why, she’s Chief Delivery Dog, Octagon Bakery, that is. Why, she knows this ole’ clockwork town better’an any of us, right Pebby?” She stood on her back legs and rested her front paws on his leg.  He picked her up and comfortably held her in his lap, grateful that the uproar was over.

     “So,” asked Phillip, “can you help us get to the tailor shop? Which way should we go? We don’t have much time to spend here, we’d just as soon go now.”

     “Well, youse better not be makin’ your way at night, curfew in place an’all. The Automats don’t take kindly to movement at night if’en youse know what I mean.  No, better to rest here, have some soup and bread, rest tonight and we’ll talk in the morning. Just be sure to be quiet, stay inside cause we gotta’ keep you under cover.  If the Automats suspect a stranger, no tellin’ what they’ll do, and we’ll all be in danger.”  He nodded and pointed to his daughter, who quickly turned away to try and hide the fact that she had been listening to the entire conversation.

Smiling now, Wassy made her way to a wooden shelf, retrieved two mugs and ladled soup from a pot hidden in the embers of the fireplace. 

     “Sorry,  I’m sorry. I dinna’ know who youse was, ya know?  Sorry if I hurt ye.” She hung her head, then looked up and met McClure’s eyes as she continued.

     “Sorry, really sorry, hope your shoulder ain’t too bad, really, I am sorry!” She lifted her hand as if she wanted to touch him, but withdrew.       “I’ll give ye some liniment I made from Achillea plants, made it meself!” she boasted. 

     “A … kill … what?” McClure looked skeptical, remembering that minutes ago she was twisting his arm out of the socket.

     “Yarrow, silly, called Yarr...ow,” she smiled widely, revealing crooked front teeth that didn’t detract one bit from her natural prettiness.     Handing him the cup and lowering her eyes shyly, she pulled some worn blankets from a small wooden cabinet and gestured to the floor.

     “Go’on, make yourselves comfortable, go’on.” She smiled a wide smile, crinkling her eyes. She shrugged her shoulders as she looped the long, dirty braid behind her right ear. 

     Handing him a small, hollowed out wooden container, she nodded her head.  “It’s yarrow. I make it by grinding up flowers.  We use it on our sores and hurts. Ye kin too, go’on, it’s not gonna hurt ye.”

     Nodding again, backing away, she pulled her worn dress around her, kicked off dirty, brown work boots, and effortlessly climbed a ladder to a loft.

     “Gunnight,” she softly called over her shoulder. Exhausted, the boys dropped to the floor, unrolled the pallets, and sipped their soup. Only when McClure was certain she was not peeking down on him, did he dip his fingers into the liniment and reach under his shirt to rub it on his shoulder. Phillip raised his eyebrows and spoke first.

     “Let’s sleep dude, we’ve had enough today.  Don’t eat that stuff, ok?” Phillip chuckled softly under his breath. Wymore pulled a pallet from the cabinet and stretched out on the floor across the room. He softly mumbled to no one in particular,  “Naji. I canna’ believe it. Naji. Of all things.  The old buzzard, bein’ alive?”  Shaking his head in grateful disbelief, he laughed.  “Well, that’s just like him to pull sumptun like that.”      He shook his head.  

     “But if’n he sent ye boys he must take great stock in youse. I’ll help ye all I kin, youse gots to know that!”

     Pebby was already curled up asleep between the boys who, likewise, were snuggling down.  Exhausted, they opened their eyes wide, when, from the other side of the room, they heard Wymore’s soft, but firm voice float through the darkness.

     “Waid’a minute.  Where is youse from?  Where is youse FROM, and Where is Naji Najeem? Where is he right now?”

     At that same minute, instantaneously, Phillip sat straight up. Raising his eyebrows and wrinkling his forehead, he exclaimed loudly,

     “Wait a minute! Wadda ya mean, Chief Delivery Dog?”