But it took hours for the image of Death to fade and even when it did, it didn’t fade completely. Sunny didn’t think it ever would.

29

FULL PLACE

Sunny didn’t know exactly when they crossed the border into lands that were full. There was no obvious line. But within four hours things had shifted . . . drastically. Below them were miles and miles of the lushest green rain forest Sunny had ever seen. A massive, thick blanket of treetops. From above, it looked like the top of bunches of broccoli. She was sure they had to be somewhere near the Cross River Forest. What other part of the country could look like this? But that wouldn’t have made sense with the northeast direction they were going. She’d tracked this by the location and movement of the sun.

Then, at first she thought Grashcoatah had decided to fly lower. However, upon several minutes of closer inspection, she saw that it wasn’t that they were lower; it was that the trees were higher, much higher, and bigger. Monstrously gargantuan trees of a type she’d never laid eyes on. They were over a thousand feet in the air, and Grashcoatah now had to weave around several of them.

Grashcoatah stopped making himself invisible. “What are you doing?” Orlu asked. “Someone will . . .”

“See him?” Sunny asked. They both laughed uncomfortably. There were far stranger things in the air and on the ground and in the trees. She’d seen some sort of insectile creature as big as Grashcoatah flying in the distance.

“Look!” Orlu said as they slowly passed the highest mahogany tree Sunny had ever seen. Its rough trunk was wide as a house, and within its top leaves were red furry creatures that looked like something right out of the Muppets. They had long swinging arms, and the fur on their bodies was so thick that they looked like giant red puff balls. They were picking and gathering the softball-shaped light green mahogany fruits and putting them into cloth sacks.

Sunny blinked and looked again. The sight was all types of abnormal. As they passed, mere yards away, Sunny saw that their eyes glowed orange yellow like setting suns. One of them raised its hand and let out an ear-splitting howl as the grasscutter flew by, and all the others waved with their big humanoid hands. They had no fur on their palms. Sunny, Orlu, Chichi, and Sasha waved back. From that point on, it was strange creature after strange creature.

There was the flock of hummingbirds and praying mantises, all matching bright green, that flew with them for ten minutes. Some hitched a ride on Grashcoatah’s tail, much to Grashcoatah’s annoyance. They made cheeping sounds and seemed overly curious about Orlu’s hands, flying around them and landing on them when he held them up. Then they let a draft of wind carry them off.

There was the shadowy thing that peeked up from a dead part of the jungle below, merely a set of staring huge eyes. This thing reminded Sunny of the river beast. She was willing to bet that it was another cousin of the river and lake beasts and that the farmer had probably studied this beast when he was a student. She was glad when the thing did not leap up and try to snatch them.