“Yes,” John said, completely at a loss for a quote or reference or bit of glibness to append to his response. “Indeed. We do.”

Was the coinciding of tribe’s depopulation with Ginger’s overpopulation just a coincidence? A silver lining in a tragedy? An ill wind blowing some good?

“Let’s move along,” Mama said to Ginger. “I’ve got lots of folks to talk to today, and if we can get your kids settled before it gets any colder out I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.”

“One moment, Mama,” Ginger said, not taking her eyes of John. “I’d appreciate a chance to talk to our noble savage, since we’ve never really had a chance to chat before.”

Mama raised an eyebrow, looking between the red-haired witch and the young man who was doing his best to smile calmly at her.

“Alright,” she said. “I’ll be in the candle shop, then. The van needs new air fresheners.”

Ginger waited until Mama walked away before she said anything.

“The thing about Ivan,” she said, “is that he’s very good at discovering enemies. He can find them wherever he goes.”

“This is true,” John said.

“If he spends enough time investigating these attacks, he’ll find an enemy,” Ginger said. “And it will be a gang, or a renegade lodge or circle, or something tribe’s prepared to deal with… and there might be fighting and it might be horrible, but it’ll beat a lot of the alternatives: that the attacks came from a single powerful figure beyond Ivan’s reckoning, or that they came from a perceived ally with roots in tribe and connections all through it, or someone who would be shielded by innocents… civilians, say, or children. None of those things would be good to find.”

“You raise some interesting points,” John said.

“Go on and follow your breadcrumbs back the way you came,” Ginger said. “Before they all get eaten and you’re left alone in the dark forest.”

Et fini.

“Ivan, in point of fact,” John said.

“Ivan?” the ginger-haired woman said, her eyes darting around the strip. John felt he’d made a misstep in mentioning the security head’s name. Of course… he didn’t go on with the witches, and vice versa. “What’s he doing here?”

“Not a thing, that I’m aware of,” John said. “I’m here on his behalf… well, I should say I am abroad in the world on his behalf.” He was babbling… his clever, nimble tongue flopping around in his mouth like a sack of wet flour while Ginger’s eyes bored into him. “My feet and the metro bus brought me here. Where they’ll take me next, I can’t say, but I can’t wait to find out.”

“What’s Ivan up to?” Mama asked.

“Grasping at straws, probably,” Ginger said. “I don’t think the person who attacked tribe would be careless enough to leave any traces a man like him could find. He’s chasing shadows, tilting at windmills…”

“Following breadcrumbs?” John suggested.

“I’m sure he’ll do less damage if he feels like he’s doing something,” Mama said. “Caged tigers got to pace, you know. I’m trying to keep everybody busy, honestly… give them goals, things to work towards instead of listening to rumors and dwelling on whatever they remember of last night. One thing we’re doing is integrating Ginger’s older charges into our houses… with our numbers down, we’ve got the room, and we need the eyes and hands.”

“The mall’s been getting crowded, anyway,” Ginger said. “It’s really for the best for everyone.”

“Except the souls we lost, of course,” Mama said.

“Of course,” Ginger said, smiling. “I didn’t mean… it’s making the best of a bad situation.”

“Of course,” John agreed, thinking meet it is I set it down, that one may smile, and smile, and be a villain. “At least, I am sure it may be so in Denmark.”

“What?” Ginger asked.

“What?” John said. “Oh, er… nothing.”

If the former, then his path had presented him with a puzzle, or a puzzling anomaly… though not necessarily a terribly relevant one. If there was a connection between Ginger’s unknown adoption plans and the mysterious attacks that had decimated tribe’s membership, he couldn’t see it.

But it wasn’t as though the candy store had presented itself to him in a dramatic fashion when he stepped off the bus. He’d only gone there because he regarded it as friendly territory and the police officer had made it apparent that he was expected to shop in the shopping center.

What if the police officer had been the next step, though? What if that was the answer, or a clue? A purge by the authorities… there had to be elements within officialdom that suspected the existence of something like tribe, and it wasn’t so unimaginable that those same elements would have resources or contacts in the mystical world.

But then, if the officer had been part of the path, and he’d directed John to go to a shop or leave… maybe he’d been meant to leave?

Or maybe he’d just been fooling himself. He’d gone on a bus ride, not a vision quest. Maybe it was all just a shadow play he’d been performing for himself. Why not? He’d started out by following a path that wasn’t there… what had he expected?

“And this weak and idle theme, no more yielding but a dream,” he said, shaking his head. “If we shadows, indeed.”

“John! Hey there, John!”

He knew the voice, and turned to see Mama, not quite supported by a severe, athletic looking woman with bleached blonde hair pulled into a tight knot. The bodyguard was standing so closely that she might have been helping her stand, but that was a clever bit of fiction.

With them was a red-haired, freckled woman in black.

Ginger had more children in her care than most people would likely know what to do with… if anything, she had a surplus. She didn’t have to go seeking out more.

It was possible, he thought, that she meant to take some of the children who were her unofficial charges and bring them in. He didn’t know enough about her to know how likely that was, but it struck him as somewhat implausible. There were so many children living in the mall that adopting one or two of them would not make much of a difference.

But then, perhaps she wasn’t the one who was to do the adopting… perhaps she was adopting some of her children out. Was this possible? Again, John didn’t know the lady. Most people affiliated with tribe had a natural or acquired distrust of “the system”, though, and if Jericho had been overflowing with conventional homes in the mundane world that were eager and desperate for these children, then they would not have ended up on the streets in such numbers in the first place.

And if Ginger had been consulting with “her mama”, that made it even less likely that she’d have been talking about placing her children with an adoption agency in the straight world.

“Could you tell me exactly what it was that Ginger said?” John asked, but the woman looked cagey.

“Hey, I wasn’t really listening that close,” she said. “Like I said, I wasn’t eavesdropping. If you’re so closed to Ginger you should probably just ask her.”

“I’m sorry,” John said. “I’m just trying to determine if it’s too early for congratulations… it’s such an arduous process, you know, and I would be but an ass if I went about expounding without knowing for certain.”

“Uh, yeah,” the woman said. “Well, I don’t have the inside scoop or anything. I just know what I heard, which wasn’t a lot.”

“Thank you all the same,” John said. “I think I’ll be off.”

The Old Forest Sweet Shoppe was indeed hard to miss. It was the corner store on its block. Its outside was paneled with what looked like gingerbread. The bottom of the edifice was trimmed with gumdrops and the display windows were lined with candy canes.

The bell tinkled as he entered the store. Having never visited the mall, he’d never chanced to enter the shop, either, and thus had yet to make the acquaintance of its proprietress. However, one glance at the young lady behind the counter was enough to tell him that she was not the witch of the Old Forest.

For one thing her hair was the wrong color.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hey,” the young woman said. “You’re one of Ginger’s friends, aren’t you?”

“A friend of the family, as it were,” John said.

“Yeah, you’ve got the look,” she said.

“What look would that be?”

“Grubby.”

“You aren’t one of her children, then?” John asked her.

“Ginger’s?” the girl asked incredulously. “I didn’t think she had any yet… she never talked about any, before.”

“Have you worked here long?” John asked. He marked the words “yet” and “before”, but if Ginger’s employee were indeed outside the loop, he didn’t want to give anything away through careless questioning.

“A little while,” she said. “Since the start of the summer… I work weekends, but Ginger called and asked me to cover the store while she visits her mother.”

“Ginger’s mother,” John repeated.

“Yeah, she was talking to her mama on the phone when I came in, about going over the details of an adoption. I thought it was weird, since she’s never shown any interest in kids before, that I could remember.”

“You think she’s adopting one?”

“I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but it sounded that way. She was definitely talking about adopting kids.”

“Well, you know, ‘brevity is…’, and so forth,” John said.

“Listen, the Meier Mall is a family entertainment thing,” the cop said. “People bring their kids here.”

“I’ve noticed,” John said.

“What I’m saying is, you need to be respectable if you’re going to be here,” the cop said.

He took off his cap and scratched at his scalp. The fit, tanned young man wasn’t pushing his crazy button, but he was just off enough to make him uncomfortable.

“A man should be as he seems,” John said.

“Just put your shirt on, okay?” the cop said.

“I thank you, your lordship, it is very hot,” John said.

“Are you crazy? I’m getting cold just looking at you.”

“It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed,” John said, pulling on the dirty flannel from the bus.

“And we’ve got laws against loitering,” the cop added. “If you don’t have any business…”

“Every man has business and desire, such as it is,” John said, bowing. “For mine own poor part, look you, I’ll go pray.”

“Christ have mercy,” the cop said. “Look buddy, I like a bit of culture as much as the next guy, but this ain’t no hang-out spot. We keep it respectable. So, you need to either do some shopping, or move on. Are you hearing me?”

“I am,” John said. “I will take my leave of you, and as parting is such sweet sorrow, perhaps you could direct me to a candy store?”

“Old Forest,” the cop said, pointing. “If you’ve got eyes to see, you won’t miss it.”

“Thank you,” John said. He bowed again, then turned and headed towards the gingerbread bedecked storefront.

“And watch your ass… we cops aren’t all uncultured boobs, but nobody likes a clown,” the cop said.

“Noted!” John called, and he skipped away, singing, “In youth, when I did love, did love, methought it was very sweet…”

Most of them weren’t looking at the statues or the architecture or the plaques marking historic locations. The big chain stores had steadier traffic than the local ones. For all the money that had been spent developing this supposed cultural landmark, the Jericho city fathers might as well have just built a conventional mall.

“O brave new world,” John declared. “That has such people in it!”

A businessman who happened to be walking past, talking on a tiny earpiece, stopped in his tracks and gave John a perplexed look.

“Brush up your Shakespeare,” John told him. The man flipped him off, and John bit his thumb at him in response, then turned and climbed up on the edge of the fountain, seized with an irresistible impulse to inject a little culture into the bodies of those who seemed inoculated against it. “What a piece of work is a man,” he declaimed. “How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals… and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?”

“Hey, Mac,” a police officer said, strolling over. “You need a permit if you’re going to do street theater.”

“All the world’s a stage,” John replied. “And all the men and women merely players.”

“Save the sound and fury for somebody who cares,” the cop said. “Don’t give me a hard time, okay?”

“Sorry, officer,” John said, bowing and then hopping down. “If we shadows, etc.”

Each time his lids opened he noticed more of the children… the foundlings, the witch’s charges. There were so many of them, and their number didn’t seem to have been at all diminished by the attacks. If they had not been included, had the exclusion been deliberate, a mark of mercy? Or had the attackers not known about them or not reckoned them as part of tribe? Or was the sweetshop witch’s protection that potent a dissuader? That was certainly possible. None of the greater witches had been attacked, that John had heard about.

For how little attention they attracted, the kids were very active… there were kickball games and at least one game of soccer going on. A battered ball dinged off the side panel of a police cruiser parked halfway up on the sidewalk near where one of the traffic-bearing streets terminated against the pedestrian mall. The bicycle officer stationed near it shook his head and started to scold the girl who came chasing up after it, but then seemed to change his mind and forget about her. John himself, though he knew full well just how many dispossessed youths called the Mile home, was already losing track of them all.

He’d expected the bus to lead him to an answer… or failing that, an obvious signpost pointing him in the direction he should next look, but nothing presented itself save the mall itself, the children, and a fluttering banner advertising ten percent off at the Old Forest Sweet Shoppe.

He felt discouraged, but he decided to press on with his investigation.

“Thou know’st we work by wit, not by witchcraft,” he reminded himself. “And wit depends on dilatory time.”

He sent out every agent he had, including irregular ones such as Marley and John and John, and had them investigate every person and power on the streets he could think of. He even looked at the most mundane street gangs to see if they had suddenly acquired the connections needed to strike through the unseen world.

In the end, it was fruitless. He acquired much in the way of interesting intelligence, but in terms of the manpower he allocated and the time he spent, it was a very inefficient operation. It galled him, though, to know that tribe had been hit with an all-out assault and he hadn’t seen it coming, hadn’t prevented it, and couldn’t do anything to stop it from happening again.

It ate at him… and what ate at him almost as badly was the knowledge that more than his own pride was at stake. He couldn’t protect tribe.

Down beneath the streets of Jericho, John’s sojourn into the kingdom of the blind was similarly fruitless, but the proud man didn’t feel that his inability to turn up any signs of conspiracy or discern any preparations for war, even in the “town proper”, was a reflection on his abilities… rather, he took it as a sign that there was nothing there to be found.

He had penetrated the underground realm… the best guarded domain of Jericho street life… undetected. Ivan’s challenge to his ego had been met.

As for the other John, who had followed his feet until they led him to a bus, he spent hours riding on it as zig-zagged its way through the town. No signs presented themselves to him. No stop called out to him. It all seemed so routine. He stayed on the path he’d found until it came to its end: the Mile Mall.

That she was unable to immediately divine the nature or location of her sentry told her everything she needed to know about him, which made it possible for her to ignore the urge to ignore Marley and spot him. She gave Ivan credit for trying. She knew he would not have resorted to deliberate magic in order to spy on her… apart from his distaste for it, he was far too intelligent to think anyone in Jericho could get past her defenses in that arena.

Wow was commonly regarded as being the second most powerful witch in the city. Whether that was true or not, she did not know, but it certainly involved a good deal of oversimplification. Apart from her sister, all witches… at least those of any particular power… were specialists. There were some areas where she knew better than to challenge one of her fellow practitioners, out of a healthy respect for their supremacy.

But above all else, Wow was a seeress… her inner magical eye was her trademark and her claim to fame. No witch in town… not even Ginger, who could keep her whole gang of children under wraps… would have sent somebody against her cloaked in spells of concealment and expected them not to be noticed.

Ivan was lucky that she wasn’t an enemy, she thought. Or rather, Marley was lucky. As things stood, she simply made careful note of the fact that Ivan was meddling west of the border, in case it became prudent to complain about it later. She’d keep the knowledge to herself for now… John and Sam were temperamental about that sort of thing.