“Don’t go down that slide! It’s haunted!”

  Pentrot watched two kids perched tentatively at the stairs leading up to the tallest slide from where she sat on the guardrail near the slide’s gaping mouth. The shifting wooden slats that made up her entire body made soft, murmuring clinks as her long tail swished from side to side.

  Their excited chatter had disrupted the Enigma from her nap atop the warm slide: her favorite sunning spot.

  The one who hadn’t spoken, a young boy with a shark in a sailor’s hat on his shirt, seemed to mull over the words. Then, pronounced, “It’s not haunted.”

  “It is too.” Said the other kid, a little girl in overalls with a cat frolicking on the front. She crossed her arms.

  “Prove it.”

  “What?! No!”

  “I double-dog-dare you to prove it!” The boy lifted his chin.

  Pentrot perked up her pointed ears. From what Pentrot understood of the small humans, that phrase meant it was a challenge of extreme honor. The girl considered the words with due seriousness, glancing from the boy to the plastic purple slide.

  She finally stomped over to the slide, brows furrowing, and plopped down at the top and put her hands in the air. “Look. I’m not going to push myself down the slide. The ghost will.”

  Pentrot yawned and stretched, and debated what to do while the kids’ parents laughed and chatted on the bench down below.

  Perhaps it was the stitched cat overalls, which Pentrot had found entertaining; the little girl would love to know that her ‘ghost’ was really just a cat with the body of a puzzle. Or perhaps she was more interested in the double-dog dare, but Pentrot decided to humor them. This time.

  She leaped gracefully down, landing easily on all four paws. Then, focusing all her energy into her left paw, she batted at the girl’s back.

  Nothing happened.

  Gritting her wooden teeth, the Enigma cleared her mind and focused all of her effort into the push. The girl yelped, sliding forward a bit. Then, suddenly, whirled down the slide.

  “Woah!” The kid with the shark shirt breathed, eyes going wide as the slide made its usual plasticy groans and thuds.

  Pentrot curled her tail and twitched her wooden whiskers in satisfaction, watching the little girl land safely in the sand, giggling. The wooden Enigma cat had first pushed a kid down the thing two months ago. The kid was in her way, and she wanted a nap in the sun, and, of course, she was bored. But now, she couldn’t get the tiny humans to stop coming up to the height of the playground and asking for ‘the ghost’ to push them down. Sometimes she humored them, and sometimes she didn’t. It was more fun that way.

  “See! Haunted!” The little girl shouted up from the sand below.

  “What’s going on, you two?” One of the adults got up, a woman with short, neatly cropped dark red hair. Pentrot guessed she was the mother of the little girl based solely on hair color.

  “There’s a ghost in the slide!” The little boy tattled.

  Pentrot slunk across the banister to perch on the climbing wall for a better view of the action, tail still curled, and her wooden whiskers twitching. In place of eyes, the Enigma had strange lavender gemstones set into her face. Despite her lack of identifiable pupils, the glimmering facets of her eyes were still intent on the three humans.

  “There’s a ghost?” The mom laughed slightly, climbing easily up the rope ladder. “Where?”

  “In the slide.” The boy pointed.

  The mom looked between the two kids and gave a small fluttering laugh that belied her strict appearance. She plopped down at the mouth of the slide. “Oh ghost! Come give me a push!”

  Pentrot flicked her ears back in indignation. She couldn’t pretend to be a ghost in front of the adults. Adult humans, besides Pentrot’s favorite, Myla, only got scared and unpredictable when presented with Enigmas. Then they proceeded to do lots of useless things that mostly endangered themselves. The little ones didn’t take things for granted, and they were used to things they didn’t understand, so Pentrot could interact with them more easily.

  “It doesn’t work when you're here!” The girl proclaimed.

  “Of course. Well, it’s a good thing we need to head back home, then.” The mom stood up and looked down at the little girl.

  There was a chorus of incomprehensible whines from the two kids that might have been words before they’d been elongated and jumbled together.

  Pentrot watched, her ears perking back up and her tail drooping as the two mothers retrieved the children. The kids clung to the playground set with a lot of shouting and wailing, and talking about ghosts, but nevertheless, ended up being led away. All of the humans bundled up open snack containers off their bench and left across the grass towards the nearby parking lot, the kid in the shark shirt still sniffling and pouting slightly.

  And, just like that, Pentrot’s park got suddenly very quiet.

  She climbed up the plastic wall, back up to the tallest tower with its purple slide, and stared up at it, a sinking feeling going through her chest. She wasn’t sleepy anymore and didn’t feel like sunbathing. Pentrot sighed and sniffed the air lightly. It smelled like sun-baked grass, dandelions, old crumbs of small cheesy fish-shaped crackers... and something odd that fizzled through the air, and set her wooden slats on edge; the smell of fresh green wood and dry woodchips, and the sickly hint of rot wrapped into one. And she smelled it in the Enigma world rather than the human one.

  Pentrot frowned and disentangled herself from the playground equipment. Not long after Pentrot slipped down one of the smaller slides, a bus crossed the town limits into Liminality several blocks away. Pentrot padded softly across the sand, weaving between the swing set and the seesaw as the bus huffed and trundled to its first stop. She seemed to recognize the smell of the bus and changed course, across the soft green field of grass and blooming dandelions and the tiny purple flowers of Colorado blue mustard.

  Pentrot got to the metal bench before the bus with ease, she lept onto the seat and waited as the old vehicle rasped and sputtered its way up the street. It took a while and made a lot of mechanical groaning in the process, but Pentrot adjusted all four of her paws and perked up her pointed ears. Whatever the strange scent was, it was likely getting out at this stop. Liminality was a popular destination for Enigmas.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “What a lovely morning to find a cat sitting all alone.” A voice came from behind her. The voice was moist, with a hint of a whine to it.

  “Marasmius.” Pentrot’s wooden whiskers twitched, straightening in a way that made all the wooden slats lock in place down her spine. She turned slowly, eyes narrowed.

  “Cat,” Marasmius gurgled, circling into view. The new Enigma was a fox-like creature made of a tangle of various different mushrooms from a mix of small orange mushrooms, some spotted red ones, and a bright white mushroom. The stems were twined together in elaborate and purposeful knots. Marasmius had the strange, earthy musk of mushrooms along with the smell of thick, wet dirt.

  Pentrot often wondered if there was something underneath the colony of mushrooms— like the bones of one of the Legendary Enigma’s unfortunate victims, but she didn’t want to get close enough for a good look.

  The large, eyeless cap that served as the fox Enigma’s face split, revealing needle-sharp rows of gill-like teeth within the cap.

  “A new Enigma is coming in off the bus.” Pentrot flicked her tail at the vehicle crawling asthmatically to a stop. “I think it may be a second Fragmented.”

  “As expected.” Marasmius tilted their head.

  Pentrot shifted from one paw to the other, tail flickering back and forth, her ears pinned back against her head.

  “It had to happen eventually.” Marasmius oozed, slinking around the bench. “Even you are here in Liminality. You must have expected—”

  “Enough.” Pentrot hissed, leaping onto the back of the bench.

  The orange mushroom cap that served as the fox Enigma’s face turned slowly towards Pentrot. The top part of the cap peeled back, revealing more of the odd teeth and the slick, smooth back of the Enigma’s throat. “Do not threaten me, cat.”

  “I wasn’t trying to.” Pentrot’s teeth flashed when she spoke. “I doubt you knew that a Fragmented had entered the city. Why are you actually here?”

  Marasmius tilted their head, yanking a paw out of the dirt, trailing white threads that writhed like caught worms. The fox Enigma smiled a needle-gilled smile, slinking closer. “I’m here for you, cat.”

  Pentrot took a small step back, shifting her weight to her hind legs subtly.

  “I need you to help us enact the Severance. Soon.” Marasmius flicked the mushroom colony that made up their tail.

  “That’s not a decision I can make.”

  “You have the power to effect the Severance—”

  “Effect. I can’t force it to happen, it will begin when it naturally triggers,” Pentrot paused to glower down at the larger Enigma, “Fox.”

  Marasmius let out a loud a rasping hiss. The thin strands of mycelia stretched out toward Pentrot, and she backed away, arching her back and baring sharp wooden teeth.

  “You will regret your disrespect, cat.” The fox Enigma spat. “Be sure you’re on the correct side by the time all of the Fragmented have arrived. Don’t stop the Severance, see it to its completion, or I will take you apart, piece by piece.”

  Marasmius turned and sauntered away, trailing another bout of the spasmodic gurgling that Pentrot assumed was laughter.

  “I’ll do what I need to. And only that.” Pentrot murmured under her breath, turning her attention back to the bus, which had pulled up to the stop while she wasn’t paying attention, trying to slow down the pounding of the wooden mechanism that served as her heart.

  The doors hissed and shuddered and creaked open abruptly. She perked up slightly. There was a scraggly guy with a mop of sand-colored hair at the bus doors. His service dog, who was already sitting on the ground in front of him, was watching with bemusement as he dragged two large luggage bags. One of them kept getting stuck on corners and any dip in the floor, and he had to stop every few inches to struggle with it.

  The pauses gave Pentrot plenty of time to study him. He looked more… solid… than most humans did; a signifier of humans who could see Enigmas. More interestingly, the edges of both worlds also glimmered around him like a mirage.

  It meant he could see Enigmas, a lot like her human. It was unusual in that it didn’t have the flickering effect of someone who could, and most likely would, gift their Sight to another human, which was more common among the few humans who had the Sight in the first place. Pentrot guessed it was hereditary, which was rare, but not unheard of. The idea made her uneasy. There weren’t a lot of families out there with the Sight.

  The strange Enigma scent got stronger, distracting Pentrot. Woodchips, rotting wood, and fresh wood all wrapped together in a sickly sweet combination assaulted her nose. Pentrot narrowed her eyes and scanned the human and his bags for a clue. She expected it to be harder to find, but it was right out in the open.

  Yellow eyes peered from the human’s shattered shadow. Pentrot took a step back, and the Fragmented’s eyes shifted. Even though it didn’t have pupils, she felt the odd prickling feeling of the Fragmented’s attention.

  Which one are you? Pentrot thought, narrowing her eyes at it. She’d have to check the Lightwell journals. All of the Fragmented had identifying features that told them apart. She guessed it was the eyes based on the other Fragmented she’d seen, but that didn’t tell her much about the Fragmented’s powers, or its name, which was almost as important.

  The shadow froze as the human it was attached to goggled around at the town. Pentrot leaped up onto a fence nearby, peering out, and hoping he human wouldn’t see her. It would be more difficult to follow him if he did. However, he quickly went back to plodding along down the sidewalk as the bus rumbled off in a huff of black exhaust.

  Pentrot, grudgingly, shadowed the human, clamoring up a metal drain pipe onto the nearest roof. She leaped from roof to roof, a shock of exhilaration glancing through her mid-jump. Her wooden claws scrabbled on the rough shingles when she landed on all fours, but she kept running. Occasionally, she would stop to glance down at the white strips of sidewalk to make sure she was still on the right path. Although she had an uneasy feeling, she knew where he was headed.

  The human confirmed her worst fears. He turned up the driveway at a house poking through a thick patch of trees towards the end of Azelea Street. The Lightwell house.

  Pentrot’s eyes widened, whiskers twitching. There were very few coincidences in the Enigma world. She’d have to keep an eye on the sandy-haired human; the Fragmented could get very out of hand if it got a hold of the Lightwell powers. She’d keep her space for now, though; the new Fragmented would likely have its own ideas about the Severance, which would make it too interested in Pentrot.

  No matter what, she couldn’t let any Fragmented get hold of both herself and the Lightwell at the same time. That would get harder once they were outnumbered.

  She curled and uncurled her tail uneasily, sinking her claws into the rough roof tiles under her paws, which was satisfying, but couldn’t quite get rid of the fear gnawing at her. The more Fragmented that gathered, the more likely the Severance was coming.

  The Severance…

  She didn’t want to think about it, but that word kept coming back to haunt her. Pentrot had no idea how to feel about it, much less what to do when it finally happened. All she knew was that she desperately needed more time. It felt like the decision of what to do when the Severance finally happened would pull her apart. And maybe it could. She had no idea.

  The Enigma world and the Human world were slowly peeling away from one another like two layers of poorly applied paint, and Pentrot— only Pentrot— had the power to finish severing the Enigma world from the human world, or stop the natural severing that was already happening. That power meant nothing when she had no idea how to use it. Even worse, it was the only power she had. It couldn’t keep her or anyone she loved safe in the meantime.

  Some Legendary Enigma she was.

  She worked her way to the opposite edge of the roof. She paused before the relatively neat backyard that was only marred by kids’ toys: a rubber smiling horse lying on its side speckled with dirt, a beach ball sat alongside a deflated and crumpled blow-up pool in the corner, and a faded plastic orange slide stood resolutely in the center supported by four overgrown stumpy legs.

  She blinked at the slide, ears flicking back. Then, she scaled her way down the side of the brick house using a crisscrossing trellis, careful not to crush the sweet-smelling white roses entangled in it, and debating what the best course of action was to buy herself just a little bit more time before the Severance started.