Several weeks of daily poomphing into the woods to meet up with her new friends had passed, and Ellie was still a mystery to them. She’d managed to pepper them with long lists of questions she’d come up with while they were apart, making it clear she knew nothing of the Obscure. How she’d gone nearly six years without running across any hint of Obscurity, Jasper couldn’t fathom. 

“Do you know of any other kids who can poomph or changearoo?” Roland finally asks, throwing up his paws after Jasper’s attempts to gently tease out more information had her insisting once again that she was human.

“Well, I don’t know any other kids,” she pouts but was thinking about it. Brows furrowed, she repeats her stance, “Lenore and I are just regular people,” quieter this time.

Jasper squats down so she wouldn’t have to strain to look up at him. He’d taken to leaving his dyreham when she was around mostly because his elk features sparked a lot of new questions from her and because he wanted to practice looking human. “You remember how I told you there’s a thin layer of magic separating the world everyone sees–the Obvious–from the hidden parts–the Obscure?”

She nods. “The Veil!”

“Yes!” he beams at her, and she brightens, quite literally, the ground around them under the massive spruces they’d parked themselves under for shade flickering from yellow to orange to pink. “Well, the Veil protects the Obscure from the Obvious and is the source of all magic. I think that day we met, if you’d been a regular person, as you put it, Roland and I would’ve smelled danger and left well before you got close. And if you’d somehow stumbled on us, you’d have thought I was just a weird boy having a one-sided conversation with the forest life. The Veil treats us the same, Ellie.”

She looks down at her hands, gripping her knees. “But Lenore… she isn’t like me.”

“Maybe not, but is that so bad? Everyone’s at least a little different, right?”

Ellie shakes her head, “That’s not… what I mean is Lenore and I are the same. We were the same until she turned twelve. Then we were two people, but she kept on growing up, and I’d stopped at six. I don’t know what happened after we turned six; we have the same memories until then. I didn’t take them from her; they’re mine too. I’m Ellie, and she used to be Ellie, too. Now she’s different. I’m still just a kid. A human kid.”

Jasper softly places an enormous hand on her head, “Sounds like Lenore isn’t a regular person either. And do you think maybe that’s why you’re a secret?”

Roland points one of his surprisingly human-looking digits at Jasper, emphatically nodding in agreement. “Yes, yes! That right there. If this happened to others, you wouldn’t need to hide.”

“You think Lenore and I are alike then?”

Ah. Ah! He thinks her resistance to the idea makes a lot more sense now.

“It would surprise me if you weren’t!” he answers, petting her head.

“If you saw her, could you tell?”

“Hrm. I don’t know,” he considers it. “I am very curious about her.”

Roland tsks. “You going into town and mingling? I don’t know if that’s a great idea, man.”

Jasper frowns. “I won’t talk to anyone or do anything strange. I can blend in.”

Ellie tilts her head up at him, brows together again. “Um, you’re so pretty and tall everyone will notice you.”

“Is that why everyone stares at him?” the raccoon laughs. 

She giggles and reaches over to pick up the end of his braid. “You look like an elf prince. Wait, are elves real?”

Roland and Jasper look at each other to confirm neither knows what an elf is. “Maybe it’s another case of different words…” Roland says, remembering his confusion over “raccoons” until he found out she meant “washer bears.”

“Pointy-eared people who live in nature and do magic?” she attempted.

“That could be quite a number of forest folk,” says Jasper.

“Back to the point, pretty prince Jasper,” Roland smirks. “Why don’t you go meet Big Ellie and report back. I’d love to watch you have a dozen awkward run-ins with Obviouskind, but I’m on duty soon.”

Ellie brightened again, grabbing his hand and jumping up. “We should start walking since I can’t poomph you back home with me.”

“Tell you what,” he steps back and motions for her to stay put. “Changearoo!” he says just before glimmering into his full dyreham, a gleaming bronze elk larger than a horse. He lowers himself and, motioning with his head, says, “Hop on,” forgetting that she could poomph up on her own, which she did, unable to contain her delight. 

Roland, seeming incredibly small from her new perspective, is scowling. “Show off.” Jasper’s antlers alone were at least as tall as him and two of his brothers standing on each other’s shoulders. “Ellie should go invisible in case anyone’s on the trails.”

She agrees, and the scent of something sweet Jasper couldn’t place filled the air. He felt her holding onto his neck timidly. “You can hold tight. Grab an antler if you can reach it. We’re gonna dash to the forest’s edge near Melitown Park, and then we can walk the rest of the way?”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s great! Let’s go! Roland, I am waving to you. Good-night!”

A half-hour later, they were on the edge of the park. Ellie had poomphed down to let Jasper changearoo back into his human shape. 

“How are we going to do this?” he asks. “You’re a secret, right, so I don’t suppose you’ll introduce us? You could bring her outside, and I’ll just casually walk by.”

“Oh! I bet I can talk her into getting ice cream. And we can sit outside and eat it, so you have a few chances to see her.

“Do I look ok? Are my clothes strange?” he asks, fidgeting with his plain white t-shirt. 

She looped around him, looking at him from all angles. “How come you don’t have any spruce needles on your shorts like I did? How are your clothes so clean when you hang out in the woods all the time?”

He laughs, “A blessing from the Veil and clothes I got from a loomewe at a night market.” 

“What’s a loomyoo?”

“They’re an Obscure sort of sheep woman? Really talented with all sorts of textiles–fabric? They make magic cloth and then use it to tailor clothes to suit the changes from our dyreham and menneskeforms. You know, when we switch between shapes?”

“So you only have one outfit?” she asks, trying to picture a sewing sheep.

“Sorta? But not really? It’s more like having any outfit you want anytime you want. I can change what it looks like each time. And it always fits, and it’s clean each time I change. Not terribly different from what I think you’re doing with your changearoos, right? Same results, at least, yeah?”

She stops and looks down at her clothes. “Well, I don’t have to worry about outgrowing anything. But I can changearoo if I get a hole or rip them. I just think about what I want to wear, and it changes. I can changearoo my hair too. Have a ponytail or two. Buns. Braids. It’s nicer when Lenore does it for me, though. She knows she doesn’t have to, but she does it anyway.”

“She sounds really nice.”

“She is nice to me. She is kinda mean to Simon.”

“Who is Simon?”

“A boy from her school. He lives across the street, and I have to make sure he doesn’t see me because his family knows our Auntie Lou, and Auntie Lou doesn’t know about me. We live with her, but she’s mostly away for work.”

Jasper felt terrible for them, always hiding and keeping secrets. No one has ever noticed them? Acknowledged their Obscurity and realized they were lost? 

“Why is she mean to Simon? Is he bullying her?”

“No way! Simon is super nice! He’s only ever been friendly, but Lenore’s too afraid of our secret being discovered and says she doesn’t need friends. But it’s not true, Jasper. I think everyone needs friends. Things are so much nicer just having met you and Roland. I want Lenore to have fun days and people she can talk to.”

The tall boy looks down at the little one he’d halved his pace to keep up with. She’d started walking a while ago, and he’d followed her lead, not knowing where she lived. Her usual slight halo of brightness is gone. “I’ve been having much more fun since we became friends, too, Ellie.”

She reached for his hand as they crossed a larger street. “You need to look both ways before stepping out,” she cautions him, realizing he wasn’t used to being in town. “Cars are fast, and the people in them aren’t always paying attention like they should.”

“I don’t like cars,” he says solemnly. 

They turn the corner to her street, and Ellie freezes. Lenore is standing in front of the steps with Simon. He’s not facing them, but Lenore’s fully black-lined eyes are wide. Her mouth, a purple glossed O. Before Ellie can poomph, Simon turns to see what’s caught Lenore’s attention.