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the word you’re not allowed to say, goddamn it.” She began to cry, mumbling “Sorry” and “Fuck” in-between sobs and hugging her son.
    “See? You say it,” Cooper said. “I’ve heard you say it to Sonny.”
    Sonny? It took Story a moment to realize the cranky bird had a happy, sunshiny name.
    A few seconds after the mother began crying again, she stopped, suddenly wary. “Did you hear something?”
    “Nuh-uh,” Cooper said, still teary-eyed, refusing to look at the pictures on the page.
    Story left her exposed hideout and slipped into the last door at the end of the hallway. While Cooper and his mother finished their story several doors back, Story explored her new room, a guest room with very little in it save a desk, a bed, and a closet. In the closet hung two cocktail dresses still in dry cleaner plastic, and on the floor, Story found what she was looking for.
    High-heeled shoes, beaded and shiny-black, called to her. She put them on, quietly prancing around in her very own pajama pageant, and after leaving her old self behind, she began to strut, emerging empowered and confident. Finally, Story Easton felt like someone else, someone who made things happen. In her mind, she sparkled with fairy dust, and flew through starry skies, bringing light to shadowy places. For a moment, Story was Hope, and she flew on fairy wings, found the magic box, and rescued Cooper from everything life had done to him.
    And when she went to bed, she dreamed of an enchanted girl floating down an enchanted river.

“Where exactly am I?” I asked my snake of a train as she slithered her way through moss and buttress roots.
    She hissed her answer. “The greatesssssssst place on earth,” she said. “Jussssssst look around. There issssss life everywhere.” Then she pointed her forked tongue toward a small hill abuzz with birds and insects.
    “What do you do here?” Besides develop speech impediments, I thought.
    “I sssssearch for sssssun,” she said as her strong muscles contracted and she maneuvered us between tall grasses.
    “Do you ever get lost in the shadows?” I asked.
    She paused, then let out a brief hiss. “Sssssometimes it’s necessssssary to find onessss-self in the dark.”
    I worried that her lisp might affect her forest reputation. “Have you considered using words without the letter ‘s’?”
    To my surprise, she let out a small chuckle riddled with the letter “s,” and then continued her hiss-lecture. “True happinesssssss can only be found when you let go of your fear and recognize the beauty of both light and dark.”
    I loosened my grip so I wouldn’t hurt her, but I wasn’t ready to see the glamorous side of darkness just yet. “If the forest is full of life, what about death?”
    “Ah, death. The beginning of life.”
    I ducked my head to avoid a low-lying branch. “Beginning?” The lack of sun was impairing her judgment.
    “Yesssssss, beginning. Death alwaysssss makessss room for more life. It issssss nature’ssss way,” she said.
    “Hey, is this about that spotted killing machine I’m supposed to watch out for? Are you trying to tell me something?”
    “Ssssssshhhh. That’s not until darkness comes.”
    “Geez, thanks,” I said. “I feel much better.”
    She stopped, lifted her serpent-head, and turned back to look at me. “Remember, firssssst the treasure box, then the moonflower.”
    “Do they teach you guys that phrase in rainforest school?” I said. “You’re all in on this together, aren’t you?”
    “Ssssymbiosissssss, my dear.”
    But before I could figure out what that meant, she flung me off her back like I was an annoying parasite, and as I flipped mid-air, I hollered, “You should know I have three library books due today, and if I don’t get back home in time, I’ll be sending the rainforest a bill!”
    I landed with my face planted in a wild orchid, and when I tried to get up, I came face to face with another kind of bill, striped and