They saw what could only have been a small masquerade sitting at the center of a palm tree top. Then a patch of jungle that was all slowly undulating giant blades of grass. A pine tree with white ants the size of small children running up and down its trunk. And a hill-sized pile of what looked like dumped garbage and smelled like it, too. They passed over the first town that looked like smoke and, even without Grashcoatah’s indifference, she knew this was not the place they were looking for.

“You’re sure?” Orlu asked as they passed over the cluster of modern-looking houses that wavered in the breeze. Smoky, wraithlike people walked on the very definite paved roads. There were no cars.

“Yeah,” she said. “What I saw in my dream was much, much bigger. It was like New York.”

Soon the trees gathered again, and they were back over dense jungle. Sasha and Chichi were near Grashcoatah’s head quietly having an argument. Judging from the way they were snapping at each other, Sunny knew exactly what the argument was about. The state of their relationship was the last thing she was going to think about when they were so close to Osisi, so she ignored them.

Orlu sighed. “How come there are no people?”

Sunny hadn’t thought of that. She shivered. What if Osisi was just full of spirits, even though it was technically a place where one was in both the physical world and the wilderness? “We’re in the air,” she said, hoping she sounded convincing. “People would mostly be on the ground, right?”

They saw Osisi an hour later. From afar, it seemed to be a burning city enveloped in smoke. Sunny had lost track of time but judging from the setting sun, evening was approaching. The effect of the orange sky and the orange city wreathed in black-gray smoke was overwhelming. It was just as it had looked in her dream, and she experienced a moment of vertigo as dream and real world, physical world and wilderness, meshed together.

She shut her eyes and when she opened them, they were right at the moment of her dream where she woke up. She gasped. Osisi did look like the apocalyptic place in her dreams. Her belly dropped. They were flying right to it.

“Grashcoatah,” she screamed. “What are you doing?”

Sasha was cursing and shouting at Grashcoatah, and Chichi was looking everywhere for a way to get off the flying beast.

“Everyone, just get down,” Orlu said. “Cover your heads!”

“But, but, but . . .” Sunny babbled. She was sitting straight up, unable to tear her eyes from the burning city. Orlu grabbed her and pulled her close to Grashcoatah’s fur.

“He’s not suicidal,” Orlu said.

Grashcoatah grunted annoyed agreement.

Then they flew through the first of the flames. It felt like being slapped with a bucket of water, except it didn’t leave them or Grashcoatah wet at all. “Oh,” Sunny whispered as she peeked through Grashcoatah’s warm fur. The flames dissolved the closer they got to the city, revealing a skyline more spectacular than New York’s. Osisi was surrounded by a large ring of green. Sunny frowned. There were boats moving in it; was it bright green water?