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Angel let out a meow of protest when I stopped petting her to take Nero’s hand. “Ok, how shall we do this?” I asked.

“Villain, show yourself,” Nero declared, his voice deep and assertive.

His command shattered the scene—literally. The peaceful lakeside panorama broke like a smashed mirror. The jagged shards poured down, revealing the world hidden behind the facade.

We were now standing in an orchard, but it wasn’t like any orchard that I’d ever seen. The trees were heavy with pears and plums and mangoes…but also candy canes, cupcakes, and carrots. There was even a tree full of shoes. And one with meowing kitten statues.

Angel hissed at them.

“Don’t feel threatened by those noisy kitties,” I comforted her. “You’re way bigger than any of them.”

Her ears drew back, and she meowed in appreciation. Or at least I was going to label that meow ‘appreciative’. Honestly, I never had any idea what my cat was saying.

“You’re smiling,” Nero noted.

“Am I?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, I was just imagining how cool it would be to be able to speakcat,” I told him.

“If anyone can learn how to communicate with cats, it will be you, Pandora,” he laughed.

So I decided to give it a try. I bent down and asked Angel, “Which way to the bad guy?”

She blinked at me.

“Come on,” I coaxed her. “I’m sure you can smell him.”

Angel made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a sigh, then she trotted deeper into the orchard. We followed her. And the further we went, the weirder everything got. We passed trees heavy with fashion magazines. Trees with spears for branches and big, red, juicy apples impaled on their sharp, metal tips. There were trees made of glass. And upside-down trees that grew out of the thick, cloudy ceiling.

This place was both wondrous and weird. But most of all weird. Really, really weird.

Angel had stopped at the foot of a very large, very normal tree.

“Now what?” I asked her.

She lifted up her paw and wiped it on the rippled trunk.

“This is no time to clean your paws,” I scolded the cat. “We’re looking for the guy who brought us here.”

Angel rolled her eyes at me. And there was that exasperated sigh again. She tapped the tree.

“The tree?” I asked, frowning. “The great and powerful criminal mastermind behind this catastrophe is atree?”

I looked at Nero, who shrugged. He didn’t look any more impressed by our nemesis than I was.

“Please,” a voice called out.

“That plea for help came from the tree,” Nero said. He looked like he never wanted to utter anything so ridiculous ever again.

“Help me,” the tree spoke again. “Please, help.”

CHAPTER 7

MAGICAL CHANGES

The tree had a full head of lush green leaves and big, red, juicy apples. Each of the apples was at least twice as large as any apple that I’d ever seen. Besides that, there wasn’t anything remarkable about the tree.