She held out her hand and I allowed her to lead me across the manicured lawn to a three-foot crevice that cradled a shallow brook of soothing sparkling waters which flowed east across the acreage. We followed the stream in silence, the sounds of nature better than any conversation.

“You are wondering if this is heaven?”

I smiled. “It feels like heaven should feel.”

“What you are experiencing is the Creator’s love.”

“I definitely feel something. Bella, where is Oscar?”

She pointed ahead. I could see in the distance a large oak tree rooted in a pond that fed the stream. The oak was sixty feet tall, with outstretched limbs twice that length … and nearly every square inch of bark was covered by eight-foot-long, furry-brown bodies.

Cephalopeds …

As we approached, I realized the creatures were hugging the tree as if suckling off the bark; moreover, they were pushing and prodding one another, jostling to maintain the maximum amount of direct physical contact. Dozens more were on the ground, fighting one another to be the next in line—Oscar among them.

I ran to the pond, then waded over to the big male. Reaching out for one of Oscar’s tentacles, I held fast, hoping the physical contact would allow ABE to once more bridge our interspecies communication gap.

To my surprise, Oscar brusquely pulled his appendage away, as if he had no idea who I was.

My eyes caught movement and I tracked a body falling from one of the upper branches. The cephaloped struck two of its kind on the way down; it was already dead by the time I dragged its carcass from the pond.

The animal’s fur was covered in blood.

ABE, theorize. What’s happening here?

INSUFFICIENT OBSERVATIONS TO FORMULATE A WORKING THEORY. SUGGESTIONS: ANALYZE CEPHALOPED BLOOD. INSPECT THE TREE.

Sloshing knee-deep through the pond, I approached the tree. Gripping the distal end of the nearest cephalopod tentacle in both hands, I forcibly peeled the appendage away—to reveal cactuslike needles protruding from the tree trunk’s bark, each three-inch thorn dripping in blood.

The creature belonging to the tentacle shoved me aside, slapping its arm back in place before another animal could occupy the spot.

Their demeanor had changed. Something in the tree sap was blocking signals to their vagus nerves. Something addictive …

I looked around. The sky, the weather, the environment, the setting … I was surrounded by a sinister perfection.

“Ike?”

I turned, taken aback to find Andria standing by the edge of the pond. Her ebony hair was long and wavy, the way it was on the day we first met; her taut body nude beneath the sheer white frock.

My heart pounded, pumping blood to my loins.

She offered me a wicked smile as she entered the pond, the water rising along the sheer fabric of her garment, causing it to cling to her body.

Sinister perfection …

“Ike, isn’t everything so beautiful?”

“Andie, why are you here?”