She was going uphill, and the path under all these leaves was rocky. As she gained the top of the rise, a little sunlight sifted down between the great smooth trunks. Not far ahead of her the wood grew up against tall gray rocks spotted with moss and lichen, the lichen delicate as lace, the moss as green as beryls in the dull air. There was a cleft in the rocks. Laura walked forward among the wet leaves and looked through it. It was wide enough for three or four people to walk abreast, and not very long. A bar of sunlight sharp and vivid as a piece of yellow silk fell halfway along its stone floor from the opening at the other end.

Laura went quickly through the cleft and out the other side, onto a little lawn of short grass and goldenrod. Beyond this, the slope dropped very swiftly, and through ribbons of mist she saw a winding water laid out before her like a sleeping snake, striped with water-weed and bordered by tall, frondy plants with long purple flowers and whole clouds of goldenrod.

There was a house on the other side of the water. Tile for red roof tile, window for leaded window, graceful front and awkward wing and gray stone and white and yellow, it was a copy of the house at One Trumpet Street, Claudia’s house, the house that Laura and Ted had done their best to burn to the ground.

“We know who the copyist was, all right,” said Laura. And as she had both hoped and half feared, her own voice woke her.

Laura sat up. Agatha had lit a lamp in the corner. Ellen, in her long white ruffled nightgown that could have passed for a fancy dress at home, was folding clothes and handing them to Agatha. The black cat sat at the end of the bed, upright like an Egyptian statue. It was chilly. A thin light came through the window, and a clean, wet smell, and the sound of rain.

They were going to leave today. It would rain.

“Hi,” said Ellen over her shoulder.

“It’s raining,” said Laura.

“Do you think Claudia did it?”

Laura made shushing gestures. Agatha turned around, plucked the half-folded shirt from Ellen’s hands, and said, “Faugh!”

“Why shouldn’t it be Claudia?” said Ellen. “Nobody knows where she is.”

Laura thought of her dream. But where was the twisty lake set about with goldenrod? She looked blankly at Ellen, who added, “And Fence agrees she made it cold and rainy last summer.”

“Those were unnatural rains,” said Agatha. “That she called them I doubt not. But this is a September storm after a spell of fine weather, as we see more years than not.” She put the pile of folded clothes into a leather bag that looked like a suitcase, except that you had to strap it up with strips of leather. “Drink your chocolate,” said Agatha, beginning this strapping. “And dress yourselves. Fence will not stay for you.”

When they were packed and dressed to Agatha’s satisfaction, the three of them went down to the Dragon Hall, where they found gathered all the members of both expeditions, eating voraciously and complaining about the weather. Benjamin was standing by the fireplace with Fence and Celia. Agatha made for them at once. Laura and Ellen slipped quietly along the wall to the sideboard furthest from Benjamin. They had not had to talk to him yet. Perhaps they could leave without having to, and when they returned everything would be fixed, and they would be heroes, not villains.

They served themselves haphazardly and went to sit with Ted, Ruth, and Celia at their out-of-the-way table. Ted was dressed much as usual, but with a thick vest-like garment of dark blue wool over everything else. Celia was dressed like Ted; the men’s clothing made her look taller and much thinner. Ruth was actually wearing something other than a white dress. She had put on several of her large shirts, and over them a black serape-like thing and a black wool skirt of generous dimensions. Lady Ruth must have been fatter than her counterpart.

“You think Claudia made it rain?” said Ellen, sitting down next to Ruth.

“I know where she is,” said Laura, “but it doesn’t help.” She told them about it. Then she told them about her first dream. They found that more intriguing.

“Be sure and tell Fence,” said Ted. He thumped his mug down on the table. “Hell! I wish we knew what all this meant.”

“Well,” said Ruth, “there are mountains in the south, where we’re going. And there are evergreen forests in the north, where the rest of them are going. And I wouldn’t advise anybody to sing ‘James James Morrison Morrison,’ unless you’ve lost your flint and tinder.”

“I think,” said Laura, “that it was the flute.”

“Well, don’t play it on the flute, then. You’re supposed to use that flute to communicate with, not to fool around.” Both this speech and the tone in which it was uttered were abnormally cross for Ruth. Laura’s feelings were hurt. It seemed unfair to be taken to task for something you had done in a dream. She applied herself to her oatmeal.

“The flute’s to be played,” said Celia, mildly.

“Sorry,” said Ruth. “I am not looking forward to this trip. Sorry, Laura.”

Laura felt better, but by the time she had swallowed her oatmeal and could say so, Patrick sat himself down at the end of the table and attacked his pile of food. He was dressed exactly as he had been when they first saw him in Australia, including the green pack, and the stocking-cap falling out of his jacket pocket. Now that, thought Laura, was stupid. They were supposed to be playing their parts, and Prince Patrick would never have worn any such garments.

“Wilt thou find that warm enough?” said Celia.

“I’ve got a cloak too,” said Patrick. He grinned at his older sister. “Any last-minute lectures?”

Ruth sat up straight and glowered at him; Celia looked ready to intervene to prevent violence; and Ted said, “Yes.”

Patrick looked at him with interest, and with neither fear nor affront that Laura could see. Ted went on. “Patrick, you are pushing things right to the edge. Fence is going to hate that outfit. You can get what you deserve, as far as I’m concerned. But I bid you remember that you are the oldest of us in your party. I make you responsible for the well-being of your little sister and my little sister. And you’ll answer to the King of the Hidden Land, not to your cousin, if anything happens to either of them that you could have prevented.”

This speech aroused more indignation in Ellen than in Patrick. Laura, when Ellen caught her eye with an exasperated face, shook her head hard and pointed her spoon at Patrick. Ellen should realize that Ted’s purpose was to prevent Patrick’s doing what Patrick did best. Asking Patrick to take care of Laura and Ellen was not an insult to them.

Patrick seemed less than pleased, and then he grinned. “You’ve really got it down pat, haven’t you?” he said. “Your Majesty.” He said that with an inclination of his head just short of sarcastic.

“It’s easy when you know how,” said Ted, peaceably. This line had been a joke between the two of them for an entire summer. Laura had never figured it out, but it could still make Patrick laugh. He did laugh. Laura stopped worrying about what trouble he might get into, and began wondering what it would be like to be under his merciless supervision. Well, at least she wouldn’t drown. She might not even fall off her horse.

Celia got up abruptly. “Say your farewells,” she said. “We’ll leave anon.”

The five of them sat and looked at one another. Laura was no longer worried, but she felt depressed. They had always been together in the Secret Country. The Hidden Land was separating them.

“Laura,” said Ted, “don’t kill yourself, and don’t forget to tell Fence all your visions. Ellen, don’t you get yourself killed pretending you can do anything.”

“Ruth,” said Ellen, “don’t forget to practice your flute.”

“And don’t get all mushy,” said Patrick to Ruth. “No misadventured piteous overthrows.”

“Fear me not,” said Ruth, with the utmost seriousness. “I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow.” Patrick stared at her, and she grinned. “It’ll come to you,” she said.

Laura gave them a moment to explain themselves, and then said to Ted, “Don’t kill Lord Randolph.”

“I don’t intend to,” said Ted. He stood up. “Have we delivered our instructions all around? Let’s go, then.”

Andrew’s party, the embassy to the Dragon King, was leaving from the main door of High Castle. Fence’s party, which was smaller and burdened with less baggage, would be departing from a little postern that gave onto Stillman’s Wood. High Castle was fond of ceremonies of leave-taking, and of conducting matters in their proper order; the greater embassy was seen off first. Everybody in Andrew’s party, everybody in Fence’s, and a great many who were staying home, jostled through High Castle’s three sets of gates: across the paved yard shining with rain; through the gardens, with their drooping roses and their bare, muddy patches where the beans had been pulled up; over the moat all pocked and dimpled with raindrops; across the drenched grass, where Andrew’s party stopped to collect its horses; through the roofless, pink-paved tunnel to the last gate, and outside.

It was pouring. Ted came up to Laura where she crouched against the wall with Ellen. “Stand under the archway of the gate,” he said, rather irritably. He pulled Ellen’s hair, gave Laura a very hard hug that almost undid her, and disappeared into the surging crowd.

Laura swallowed with great force and pretended it was the rain making her eyes hurt. She and Ellen moved back under the archway, where one was subjected to large, discrete drips instead of a steady sheet of water. They almost collided with Ruth.

“Oh, good,” Ruth said. Her fuzzy black hair was misted with damp and stood out in all directions except straight up. “Ellen, behave, and don’t kill Patrick, we’d never be able to explain it to Mom and Daddy. Laura, don’t you kill him either. Your father likes him.” She knelt in the soaking grass, hugged each of them with one arm, stood up with mud on Lady Ruth’s black skirt, and said, “Don’t you dare cry. All may yet be very well.” And she, too, made for the center of the confusion.

“Make way!” called a voice from inside.

Laura and Ellen looked around and saw several wagons rumbling over the drawbridge. With one accord they darted back through the tunnel, ran along the inner side of the pink wall, and took shelter in the overhang of the nearest tower. The wagons went ponderously by them, mud clogging the red and yellow paint of their wheels, the rain sheeting off the leather covers tied lumpily over their contents. Laura and Ellen, shivering, stayed where they were, and thus missed whatever ceremony Andrew departed from High Castle with, and did not say good-bye to Randolph. Laura didn’t care. Her hair was dripping down the back of her neck, inside all the layers of good dry clothes, and they had not even begun their own journey.

She looked at Ellen, whose pale face was beaded with water and whose hair was so wet that it was almost flat. “The rain it raineth every day,” said Princess Laura.