He suddenly remembered the feather, but it was back by his warm moss bed in the Rootshooters’ place. Could he do without it? Could he make them all invisible, somehow? An image of a dusty, stained-glass figure appeared in his mind. This time, the Raven Queen’s eyes appeared to be alive, encouraging him to think of the impossible.

As the thought slithered through his mind, it was like a door opening to the brightest incandescent light.

By all rights, fleeing down the tunnel was the best option. But Ark did the opposite. He began to walk toward the monster, slowly, raising both arms as if in prayer.

For the mealworm, this was a novel reaction. A pair of globular eyes, on long thin stalks attached to the side of the head, swiveled around to study the two-legged creature stalking toward it. The boy held his hands out, palm upward to indicate the lack of weapons.

“What yow doin’?” Joe whispered, trying to pull Ark back. The boy was going to be guzzled!

“Ark!” cried Mucum, knowing he should grab his stupid fool of a friend but unable to even move.

Ark’s hands inched closer. Any moment now. There! Ark! a voice called. Although this time he didn’t think he heard it out loud. He shuddered as his fingers made contact. The surface of the worm was slimy, dripping, cold. But the boy did not recoil in disgust. Nor did that giant mouth open wide to suck him in. Time slowed to a slippery crawl, finally standing still. The boy and the beast were joined now, and a new sound emanated from the mealworm, filling the tunnel, reverberating into the darkness.

Joe was beyond surprised. “Why, boyo! Surely that ain’t the sound of purring!”

Ark answered mechanically, through the fog of his pounding head. “I know.” And he did. He was under the mealworm’s skin, could feel its unending trawl through dark passages, its lonely days and nights, its dull diet of mineral and earth, and its constant suffering from the parasites that lived under its skin, sucking away its blood until it could only gnash its teeth in pain and fury. “I know!” he said soothingly, understanding all that monstrous suffering.

The eyes on stalks momentarily softened, revealing in their dark depths a hidden intelligence. The two Dendrans and their Rootshooter guide were no longer its enemies.

Ark pulled his hands away. As the glowflies danced their last and the shadows deepened in the tunnel, the monster slowly retreated, shuffling backward awkwardly as if it were a guest who had turned up for dinner on the wrong day. It was over. They were safe.

“Diggin’ ore be dull compared to what yow just did!” Joe clapped Ark on the back.

“Did you see, Mucum? I did it!” The boy’s feet jiggled on the spot as if his body were filled glowflies.