Thank you for your patience awaiting Chapter Four; we've had some things happen amongst the Inklings that have prevented us from posting this sooner. Please note, if you are not in a chapter, you wil be in the next chapter. It'll all straighten out eventually.

Sarah's fingers caressed the keyboard and her eyes were wet with tears. She had quickly run over to her house where several of the Inklings were staying over. There had not been any sight of the missing Mariella nor of Gabrielle. As much as her soul yearned to be cheery, Sarah could not even bring herself to smile. It was as if the Inklings were falling apart. She knew they could not fight back White's Renegade characters if they were divided, they all needed to stand and fight together!
Ian was asleep on the floor, snoring loudly and muttering in his dreams, and Laura, Cherise, and Syd were all curled up peacefully in the bed. As much as she wanted someone to talk to, Sarah let them lie sleeping. They had been up most of the night, searching the town and probing about the alleys for the two missing girls. Sarah was glad, however, that Katie had been found. She would have stayed with her, Hanz and Jane, but she was needed here to keep the others reassured.
Sarah sighed as a fit of sobs gripped her. Then she shook herself. Maybe this was all a dream. Maybe everything would be alright when she woke up. Maybe. . .
Someone put an arm around her shoulders. Sarah looked up and saw Cherise smiling sadly at her.
"It's going to be alright," she said, her eyes twinkling with sympathy.
Sarah sighed. "I hope so. It's just. . . I don't want to lose any of you! You're each and every one important to the Inklings, and to have your lives endangered..." She lowered her head to the desk next to her computer and cried fresh tears.
Syd woke up with a contented sigh. "Yo. . . What's . . .? Um. . . Oh," Syd faltered when she saw Sarah crying. She reached over Laura, waking her up, and dug around in her blue book bag. Syd drew out a big partially melted bar of milk chocolate and broke it into small pieces, giving everyone a little except Ian, who still snored thunderously and was mumbling something about pirates. Laura threw him a cock-eyed glance and put her arms around Sarah.
For a couple of moments they stood there in silence, Sarah choking down her sobs, the other girls hugging. Syd was the first to look up, grabbing for her glasses.
"Hey!" she exclaimed. "Why is the window open?"
"Open!" Cherise tramped over to the gaping window and shut it. Snow had drifted into Sarah's room and was slowly melting in piles upon the window sill and in lumps upon the floor. "Who would've opened the window in winter?" Sarah sniffed.
The girls shrugged. Laura looked around Sarah's room nervously. She felt as if something was staring at them form behind the bookshelves.
Suddenly Sybil came on the Chocolate Box. "Sarah?" she typed.
The girls turned to the computer. "Here," typed Sarah quickly.
"Any sign of the girls?" Sybil typed in.
"Actually, Hanz and Jane and I found Katie."
"Oh, that is so good! How is she doing?"
"She's alright," typed in Jane, "she's traveling with Hanz and Jane, and one of Mr. White's characters to his house. They should meet up with you before too long."
"I will tell the others and pray for their safety," Sybil typed in a moment later. "Thank you for holding down the fort, my dear!"
Sarah suddenly felt an odd, creeping presence. "SYBIL?" she typed madly.
The c-box remained silent for a moment. Syd shifted her weight from one foot to another, chewing her bottom lip and feeling restless.
"Maybe. . . Maybe we should pray?" Laura suggested. "I think it's high time we all did. We must never forget Who brought us all together in the first place."
Everyone agreed, and so all the girls bowed and sent silent prayers up to the King Who sits enthroned beyond the stars.




Sybil ended her prayer aloud with an "amen".
"Amen what?" Rose asked, stretching and pulling on a dark red sweatshirt. Her hair stood up in a tangled cloud around her head and Christina, fingering the frosted glass walls of their room and thinking how she should write a story set in a place just like it, bit back a wry chuckle.
Sybil looked over her shoulder at Jo, who was sitting on the side of the bed, striving hard to put her shoe on without untying it.
"I was just praying. For the girls. Did you know Katie's been found?"
"Oh!" grunted Jo, pulling hard at her shoe, that seemed to insist on being untied first. "That's wonderful!"
Sybil said her goodbyes to the girls on the c-box, and shut her laptop. "I wonder where Pip and R.K. went to?" Gently she slipped her laptop into her big canvas book bag.
"I haven't seen them since last night," replied Rose. "I thought I heard her leave the room right before I went to sleep. I wouldn't worry, Pip can hold her own."
Meggy burst into the room. "Girls!" she almost yelled, "You'll never guess who's coming this way!"
"Josh Groban," said Jo sarcastically. She had finally got the shoe on, but her fingers were caught in it. Sybil smirked at her.
"Don't you wish?" Meggy laughed wickedly. "No, this is way better!"
"Well, who is it?" asked Christina. She fastened a Celtic knotwork belt about her long skirt and sat on the edge of the bed.
Before Meggy could answer, there was a quiet knock at the door. Meggy wrenched it open excitedly.
In stepped two female creatures. One was tall and dark skinned with flowing brown hair and emerald-green eyes. The other was shorter, with sparkling blue eyes, fair white skin and golden hair that fell in waves behind her. Sybil stared breathlessly at them. One feeling told her to bow to them, and another feeling told her to laugh, sing, or dance. Then it struck her. They were Nymphs. The tall one was obviously a dryad, and the other a naiad.
"Um. . ." stuttered Sybil, still not sure what to do. "Hi?" The other girls smiled shyly. To have a fantastical creature like these two actually standing close to them was too incredible to grasp all in one glance. They had to stare.
The dryad smiled a slow, beautiful smile, and the naiad laughed. Her voice was like bells tinkling in the sharp glassy air.
"Hi to you!" she said, still giggling. "We have come to tell you that breakfast is ready."
"Oh," Christina gasped. She was enchanted.
The girls stood there unmoving.
Then the two Nymphs curtsied slightly and left as quietly as they had entered. Still, the girls just stood there. It was Jo who broke the silence.
"That was AWESOME!" she breathed, "I wonder what kind of make-up they use. . ." Meggy wrinkled her nose at her and snickered.
"I don't know about you girls," said Sybil, standing, "but I'm hungry."
With that they dressed in a hurry, and ran down the spiral stairs into the Glass Room, where they found the glass table full of food. Jules and Mark were already there waiting for them, dark circles under their eyes, their shirts wrinkled.
"Good morning!" the girls greeted.
"Mornin'," Jules grunted as he and Mark stood to pull the high carven cedar chairs out for the girls. Christina looked closely at a carving on her chair and saw that it was a tiny rabbit being pursued by a shadowy fox, who was hiding in the bushes. Somehow she felt sorry for the little creature, even if it was only a carving.
"What's wrong with you two?" asked Rose.
"We didn't get any sleep last night," answered Mark. They told everything that had happened to them the night before. "And THEN," Mark growled, "we were so jumpy that someone would come and slit our throats that we didn't get any sleep!" Rose shuddered.
"Interesting. . ." mused Sybil, "It might have been R.K. who tied you to the ceiling."
"Speaking of R.K.," said Jules, "have y'all seen Pip?"
"No, she left our room late last night, and didn't come back," Christina answered, coming out of her reverie. She was looking across the thick glass table at the huge plates of pancakes, bowls of fresh fruit, and cups of something deliciously steamy sitting at each of their places. A dozen smells arose to meet her nose as she and the other Inklings peered at the food. There was so much of it!
The glass door on the far end of the room opened and Mr. White entered. "Good morning, young writers," he muttered, rubbing a long-fingered hand across his thin sharp face. He was dressed in a black shirt and dark brown pajama pants, and his snow white hair was wilder than last night. He sat down between Jules and Jo. "Magog?" he called.
Mr. Magog Big appeared at the bottom of the spiral staircase. "Your breakfast, sir? It's coming."
"Thank you," replied White. "Now," he said to the Inklings, "help yourself."
While the young friends began to eat (Mark was hogging all the bacon), Mr. Big came back with a silver platter, on which was a small golden loaf of bread, and a glass of the same thick steaming liquid for White.
"Is that all you're gonna eat?" Jo asked, piling pancakes onto her plate. She picked up a tiny keg of syrup and poured it all over her pancakes.
"It's all I need," replied White. "You, on the other hand, seem hungry to the fullest extent of the word."
Jo reddened. "I'm. . . . just saving some for my characters. . .?" Meggy smothered a laugh into her apple. It was a strange apple, very crisp and round and juicy, unlike any other she'd ever tasted. But then, this whole thing was a strange experience.
"I see," said White, chuckling warmly.
Throughout breakfast there reigned a happy silence. The Inklings were struck with awe at how the glass room looked with the sunlight streaming through the transparent ceiling, and reflecting off of all the glass surfaces in the room. It bounced into their eyes and they laughed to see each other's faces suddenly lit up by the light from a cup or a small tabletop.They were so mesmerized that they did not notice how long breakfast lasted. It seemed like five minutes, but was actually an hour later when White stood.
"I am going to wake myself up," he said drowsily. "You are welcome to come with me and try out my new invention, so to speak."
"Aren't you awake already?" asked Mark. He stuffed the last few pieces of bacon into his pocket and Jules rolled his eyes at him.
"That depends on your definition of awake," said White sardonically. "But come, before it gets too warm."
He led them up the spiral stair and down a dimly lit corridor, which had huge portraits of strange looking people hanging from the walls, among whom were Mr. Big, Mr. Small, and the two nymphs they had seen that morning. Christina resisted the urge to stand and stare at the beautiful creatures, she somehow didn't want to be left all alone in the dark shadowy corridor.
They came to a door which opened onto a small balcony. Rose placed her hand on the thick marble railing and jerked it back, shocked at the searing cold that met her palm. The balcony overlooked the front lawn. Snow lay in a blanket over the wilted brown grass, and tall evergreen trees with dozens of low branches good for climbing stood in tidy rows on both sides of the lawn. Several trees grew so close to the balcony, Sybil could reach out her hand and touch the rough prickly bark. The Inklings shivered in the cold wind.
"It's too cold to be out here!" Rose said, teeth chattering. She wrapped her sweatshirt closer around her.
"Naturally!" said White, smiling. "That's the whole point!" So saying, he pulled off his black night shirt. "Now." he said. "Let whoever dares, follow me!" He leapt onto the railing with surprising agility, grabbed a nearby vine, and jumped. Sailing through the air he looked like a piece of laundry that had blown off the clothesline. The girls gasped and laughed, and Mark and Jules shuddered. White had landed in a large pile of snow, and he was swimming around in it yelling at the top of his lungs.
"AMAZING!" he shouted. "It works! I'm awake! I'm such a GENIUS! Come on, Jules! Your turn!"
Jules hesitated, but then smiled crazily. He took off his hat and plopped it onto Meggy's head. Meggy held onto it tight and laughed wildly. "I have Jules's hat, muahaha!" she crowed. Then Jules tore off his shirt, and swung down to White. His yells were deafening, and nobody else tried the jump. They all laughed heartily to see Jules climb out of the snow, his bare skin red with cold, his teeth clicking loudly. White went into a loud guffaw to see him weakly raise a thumb to Mark and the girls on the balcony.


The dark woods seemed not to be touched by the blinding winter sunshine. Roiling black mists arose from the wet forest floor, bringing with it the smell of mould and mushrooms. R.K. strode in and out between the tall evergreen and oaks, shoving aside any branches that got in his way. As he walked, he fingered the wickedly sharp silver dagger that was always at his side, and tugged his long black cloak from the tangled bushes. He wondered to himself how he had managed to slip out of White's mansion into these sun-deprived woods. There was a certain eeriness to the semi-silence and the wind gently whispering through the frozen branches. He loved it. It made him feel wild and he held his dagger and fingered it lovingly.
Suddenly Pip's SAE heard a noise behind him. He froze, his black eyes piercing the shadows flitting back and forth through the shaded woods. Deciding it was nothing, he walked on until he came to a wide quiet glen overlooking a shallow dip in the land. He took in all twinkling lights in a single glance. The illustrious tiny-town of Dale...ha! Overrun with crazy teenagers who called themselves authors. He hated the very sight of a pen, unless it was put into his hand.
A twig snapped and he whirled around, only to face a man slightly shorter than himself, with a raggedy cape of dark grey tatter and conniving yellowish black eyes. R.K. nearly stumbled back into a bush in surprise, but then regained his icy composure and stared the man in the eye.
"Lost?" he snarled sarcastically.
"Hardly," the man returned. His voice was smooth and rough at the same time, the very voice of a liar. "I am here to help you."
R.K. immediately became suspicious. "Oh yeah?" he drawled, and leaned insolently against a tree. "How so?"
"You're part of a writing group called the Inklings, right?"
R.K. was silent for a moment, liking the way the man wriggled under his unblinking black stare. "I might be."
"I hear you're having some trouble with them. Let me introduce myself...I am called Foulmarke."


Beth snickered and tossed a big shiny apple at Sam's head. "Catch!" she bellowed.
"More flour!" Sam shouted out, and Cherith hauled the flour back out of the cabinet. "Boy, if I do too much tugging and pulling, I'll look like Popeye by the time we're finished!" Her voice held a charming lilt to it and Beth relished listening to it.
Sam clapped her hands together, sending up a cloud of dust, and barked, "We don't have all day, you peoples, let's get this apple pancake in the oven and baking for when Christina and the others get back!" She smeared the recipe book with a streak of white flour and squinted at the tiny print. But she was used to it, she read books with small print all the time, so it only took her a moment to figure out she should have added a fourth teaspoon of cinnamon. "Oh, well..."
Cherith snapped a dishtowel happily at the ceiling and after hanging it on the oven door handle, she decided she would see the recent messages on the Chocolate Box. Setting Sam's sticky laptop on the dining room table, she opened it up and typed "Heyloo?" just in case, then proceeded to see the most recent things said.
"Hey, Katie's been found!" she yelled. Beth rubbed her forehead-she was tired after staying up til unholy hours last night watching Prince Caspian with her friends-and grinned weakly. "Good!" she mumbled. Sam looked over at her and burst into giggles. Beth laughed and picked up a banana from the fruit bowl on the counter, holding it to her ear like it was a phone. At that very moment the real phone rang and all three girls exploded into a gale of laughter.
"HELP!" came the sudden message on the c-box. Cherith happened to look down, still laughing, and notice it. Her forehead wrinkled. "Huh?" she typed in.
Sam flapped her hand at Beth for silence, and, still trying to smother her laughter, answered the phone. "Hello?" she said delicately.
"I AM MONSTERSAURUS, ROOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRR!" shouted a young girl's voice in Sam's ear. Sam jerked the phone away and burst into laughter again. "WHAT?" she yelled back.
Beth happened to turn around and saw the sudden look of horror cross Cherith's face. She rushed over to the laptop and peered at the c-box.
"we are being attacked" had been hastily typed into it.
"WHAT?" typed Cherith quickly. "By whom?"
Sam giggled and didn't notice the two girls hovering anxiously over her laptop, awaiting an answer. She listened with bemusement as the young girl on the other end of the line babbled away.
"PICKLE, get OFF the TABLE!" the girl screamed shrilly.
"Pickle, whu'???" Sam wondered aloud. "Hey you, is this a-" Her words were broken off by a distant crash on the other end. "Is everything alright over there, miss?"
"by gabrielle and mari!" came the hasty answer on the Chocolate Box. Cherith slowly looked up at Beth, a creeping terrified sensation shadowing her usually happy eyes.
"Sam, we got to go, NOW," Beth shouted, grabbing her denim coat and putting it on backwards and then upside down.
Sam turned to stare at her. Seeing Cherith's fear-stricken face, she rabbled something unintelligible into the phone and flung it to the counter.
"Well," came the voice from the phone as the front door closed with a bang, "my name is Liz and I'd like to...hello?"


Lucy grabbed a package of Pringles chips from the store shelf and tucked them under her arm.
"Now it looks like you're stealing!" Joy hissed. She laughed gently, seeing a store clerk staring at Lucy's long silver cloak, and shoved open the chill doors of the refrigerator for four bottles of icy cold root beer. Lucy grinned at the bottles. She was trying to be happy, but the haunted look on Alex's face and the frightened look darkening his little sister Ness's face was stuck in her mind so that she was nearly sobbing behind her sparkling eyelids. To have things falling apart, right in front of her, was madness. Her brave heart longed to help the Inklings, yet somehow she had no idea how. It drove her crazy. Joy felt the same way, strong enough to fight back the Evil that was threatening them and yet unsure of what to do.
Joy walked over to get a bag of little crusty chocolate chip cookies, and the two girls walked over to the cashier, who was a tall nerdy fellow with thick-rimmed glasses and a permanent smirk. Lucy suddenly mused over what would happen if she stared at him, really hard, with her green eyes. Perhaps he would drop that pen out from behind his ear...
Joy was just digging around in her little blue flower pocketbook and Lucy was seriously considering shouting something about cream puffs into the smug grinning nerd's face, but deciding against it, when the door banged open and a girl flew in, her cheeks ruddy with running. Joy, Lucy and the cashier all stared at the girl, who was wearing a wrinkled plaid kilt, thin ponytail holders on her wrist and her hair was all matted as thought she'd just come out of bed.
"Help, we're being attacked over at Sarah's place!" she yelled.
Lucy and Joy gave each other one look, then ran out the door, not even bothering to take their purchases. The cashier looked after them open-mouthed as the three girls hurried away into the white afternoon mists.



Pip blinked in the dim torchlight and looked all about her. Her head ached and her mouth was sore where the hand had grabbed it. She tried to get up but found that her wrists and ankles were shackled to a cold stone table. Fighting rising panic, she pulled against the iron shackles and looked about her for some clue a to where she was. It was obviously a dungeon; she'd read enough books to know that much. Water dripped down the walls and plinked onto the slimy floors like a soft death-march. A putrid haze like fog hung in the shadows, slightly green in color, and a dank stale stench, like rotting plants, was strong. A furnace blazed to her right, cut directly into the flagstones of the smoke-blackened wall, and several long metal rods lay heating on the hearth. Pip sighed and flopped once more to her uncomfortable position, lying on her back watching the water run down from the ceiling. She wondered where it was coming from.
"I trust you are Pippin Armour, of the Inklings?" came a snarly voice. Pip froze.
"Ah yes, you've heard voices like mine before, girl." Pip saw a shadow dance on the walls, sent out by a weak red torch. Suddenly a looming figure came into sight. It was a tall man, dressed all in black, with a long black cloak and a wicked notched sword sheathed at his side. For a moment Pip's heart leapt, thinking it was R.K. playing a trick on her, but when he turned the man's face was sunken and sallow, his eyes blazing green instead of black, and his hair was long and dirty blond. Pip wrinkled her nose and looked at him. "Who are you?"
The man gave her a stiff bow. "I am Scorpious Sands, White's Renegade villain. My dear, I have a great plan for you. You, and all of your friends."
Pip growled and pulled at her shackles. "Don't call me dear."
The man ignored her and walked over to the furnace, drawing out one of the red-hot fire pokers. "Yes, Inkscum, soon all of you are going to be under my power. Shall I explain? Very well. In White's book, I represent Evil. I AM Evil." Pip noticed a familiar gleam in Sands's eyes and struggled harder against her iron shackles. "Ever since he started working on the Satyr's book, I've been prowling for revenge. I rallied the Renegades together, and we revolted. I'm sure you're all acquainted with the concept of rebel characters. Of course you are. Well, here our beloved Mr. White is calling some amateur authors, surely none of them older than twenty, to help him get control of us. HA!" The laugh came out like a snort. "That will not be happening. We're going to kill the Inklings off, after, of course, offering them servitude to our forces against White. Lucky you, you're the first to go because you're too dangerous to wait around for."
Sands suddenly struck out with his hand and grabbed her wrist.
"Hey now, you can't mess with the Inklings!" Pip realized how pitiful that sounded only after she'd said it. She cleared her throat and tried again. "You are not to harm my friends, you Renegade." Sands merely laughed and with a quick motion like lightning, pressed the searing red hot poker against Pip's finger, on the finger she wrote with the most. Pip gasped and bit back a cry of pain.
"Yes," Sands hissed, bending to whisper in her ear, "we will kill you off slowly, one by one."
Moving quickly, almost as if he did not wish to be discovered, Sands unshackled Pip from the rough cold table and chained her chafed wrists to the stone wall.
"What'll it be, girl?" he snarled. Pip heard the evil slashing sound of a whip being pulled from the floor and braced herself. "Are you going to take our side and help beat back this injustice?"
"To have Goodness reign is no injustice at all," Pip replied. She said a prayer for the Inklings wildly in her mind. "Go on and try, I can vouch for their bravery and hope! You'll never win, and you're a fool to think it!"
Sands gave a high-pitched shriek of anger and slashed the whip across Pip's back.