“Then I must be in your mind,” the orange cat replied. “Which, if I were you, would be even more troubling. However, being me, I find it quite agreeable. It's a very cozy existence, inside a madman's mind.”
“I'm not crazy!” the black coat shouted, halfway hysterical. “I'm not. I'm not seeing things, you're just not real. You're not made up, it's just… I just…”
Too tied up in his mind, the solider didn't notice Gwen. The cat with the sprawling grin certainly did, however, and he smiled even brighter and toothier for her. His tail flicked back and forth a bit, but then began to dissolve into nothing. Disappearing inch by inch with his happy, yellow eyes zigzagging, he informed her, “You can have this one. He should be tame as a little pussy cat now.”
“I am in full command of my mental faculties!” he shrieked. “I know it's not real, it's just not not real either. It doesn't mean anything!”
Madman Mulligan and Jimmy Sloat, either following after Gwen or drawn to the black coat's shouting of their own accord, arrived at the scene a moment after the cat had finished disappearing. In tow, they had the three soldiers, now unarmed, jangling along on a chain gang. The heavy chains dragged on the forest floor and trailed far behind them—the iron snake anticipating many more captives.
“You can't fool me!” the poor solider yelled at the vanished cat. “You're not gone—you never were!”
“What's this, lass?” Madman Mulligan asked.
“Leonard?” one of the chained black coats asked. “Leonard, what on earth is wrong with you!”
Jarred out of the fight he'd lost with logic's most amenable enemy, the perturbed solider shouted at them, “The cat! The talking cat! He was here a minute ago!” He didn't seem at all concerned with the state of his fellow soldiers, or the presence of Gwen and the pirates. The Anomalous Activity officers starred at the raving man with pity and fear.
“I think you ought to take him, Jimmy,” Gwen said.
This remark drew Leonard's attention to her, and he turned to her for support. Dropping his gun and grabbing her shoulders, he demanded, “You! You saw him, didn't you?” The man appeared so pathetic and nonthreatening, Gwen wasn't afraid even as his ridged fingers dug into her shoulders—clinging to her for some sort of assurance. “The cat… the cat thought I was crazy! But you heard him talk, didn't you?” His wide eyes begged Gwen for a response.
“What cat?” she asked.
Leonard screamed and stumbled backward. Fortunately, Madman Mulligan and Jimmy Sloat were standing by to catch him.
“Easy there, fella,” Madman Mulligan cautioned.
“Don't worry,” Jimmy Sloat assured him. “Where you're going, the nurses won't let any cats in.”
Leonard offered no resistance as the pirates linked him into the chain gang, but he did continue to protest, all but foaming at the mouth, that he was completely sane. The pirates' patronizing acknowledgements did nothing to comfort him. He continued to rave, rightfully convinced that no one believed him.
The totality of the eclipse had passed, and the sunlight seeping back into the sky even infiltrated the jungle. Gwen saw the soldiers' shadows all restored. In the dark chaos, the shadows must have deemed it safest to return to their owners. Madman Mulligan noticed this, too, and drew his sword as he announced, “If I catch any one of ya scurvy souls without a shadow, it won't have a body to return to!”
Brandishing the blade, he intimidated all his prisoners—except for Leonard, who remained occupied with inaudible muttering. His ambitions lowered, he now seemed to hope he could at least convince himself of his sanity. The crazed look in Madman Mulligan's one real eye told the black coats everything they needed to know. It was pointless, when Jimmy Sloat informed him, “Mulligan will do it, don't you doubt it. He's mad.”
“I'M NOT MAD!” Leonard howled.
The soldiers heeded the threat, and kept their shadows attached to their feet.
While Madman Mulligan glared at them, Jimmy Sloat turned his map right-side-up with confidence. “Should be five-hundred paces that way to the next of the wee scalawags' traps. Thank you kindly, Miss Hoffman, for orienting us.”
“You're welcome,” she replied.
“We'll be sure to tell the Captain how competently you were handling yourself when we found you,” Madman Mulligan told her, winking. The glass eye looked even more disturbing during the second that his real eye disappeared.
“Th-thank you,” she stuttered.
“Don't mention it lass,” he told her. With that parting remark, he and his marauding partner marched off with their prisoners to check the next trap. The soldiers looked like they had several things they would like to mention, none of them pleasant.
They passed without a word, however, and Gwen gathered her wits. The shadows had returned to their soldiers. Even if some of them went back to searching for the Never Tree, they'd have to start from square one. She could trust Peter and his team were alright. Certainly that's what the radio silence on the tin can meant. Peter would know to call for help and admit it if his adversaries started to overwhelm him, right? No one would be so immature as to jeopardize their battle over a point of pride, right?
Gwen scrambled through her satchel and pulled out her tin can as fast as she could. “Peter,” she shouted into it, “what's your status?”
The can to her ear, she heard shuffling, racing feet, and a chaotic symphony of indistinguishable noises, before Peter picked up. “It's complicated,” he answered. “I'm not sure I can explain it without puppets.”
“Are you okay?”
“Of course!” he replied, cheerful and confident. “I don't know what the coast looks like nouth of the mermaid's lagoon, though. There might be more adults coming if Starkey and his crew haven't sunk them.”
“I'll head out that way and report back when I know what the situation is,” she volunteered.
“Brilliant, 'Endolyn! Watch out for shadows!”
Peter's voice vanished and all sound with it, as if the tin can had turned off at the
