Tick focused on the occupants of the enormous indoor town. Most of them slumped along, barely speaking to each other, many with hunched shoulders or an odd limp. Black seemed to be the color of choice for their clothes, everyone wearing drab and dirty garments with rips and tears aplenty. The people’s faces were dirty too, with disheveled, greasy hair. The only spots of color were an occasional red scarf or green shawl or yellow vest, worn by those who seemed to walk with a little more confidence than the others.

And the smell—it was like a port-a-potty dumping ground, a foul, putrid stench that made Tick gag reflexively every few seconds until he grew somewhat used to it.

“Sally,” Sofia coughed, “I think we were better off on the Roofens.”

“Quit yer poutin’ and come on,” Sally replied, shuffling off to the right.

Tick and the others followed, dodging through the lazy crowd of sullen, black-clad residents, who seemed to be marching toward their destinations with no purpose whatsoever. Tick didn’t see one person smiling. For that matter, none of them showed emotion at all—not a sneer, not a grimace, not a frown to be found.

“We’ve gotta get out of here,” Tick whispered, scared to offend anyone around him but feeling a surge of panic well up inside him. He didn’t know how much longer he could last in this horrible place. “We need to solve that riddle, quick.”

“No kidding,” Paul said. “I’ve just about had my fill of Happy Town.”

“It’s not just that,” Tick said, still speaking quietly. “Something’s not right here—it’s not safe.”

Sally moved them to the side of their current path, next to a small iron table outside a restaurant called The Stinky Stew.

“Have’n yerselves a seat on dem cheers.” He pointed to the four crooked wooden chairs surrounding the table. “I’ll be back with some eats.”

As their guide entered the restaurant, a rusty bell ringing with the movement of the door, Tick and the others pulled out the chairs and sat down. Tick eyeballed the people walking by, looking for potential trouble. Seeing nothing but the unchanging mass of zombie-like shoppers, he said to Sofia, “Get the riddle out.”

Sofia did, putting the paper on the table in front of her. Tick and Paul scooted their chairs across the uneven stones of the floor until they could see the words of the long poem.

Inside the words of the words inside,

There lies a secret to unhide.

A place there is where you must go,

To meet the Seven, friend or foe . . .