Blackfire: The Girl with the Diamond Key. James Daniel Eckblad

exultantly, and with that wide grin of discovery that has no doubt about what it has suspected to be true.

      “Yes, yes, I am!” declared Poplar in a voice that seemed to melt in its effusive warmth. “So you know Thorn—and all about me! Please, quickly, tell me what you know and, and . . . if you know, is Thorn still alive? And, tell me, please, where he is!—Or where he was the last time you saw him!”

      While Beatríz and Elli ate and drank, Elli continued to glance all about in wonderment, alternately staring in joyous disbelief at Poplar and feasting with her eyes on the surroundings that made her think of what the Garden of Eden must have looked like. Both girls recounted for Poplar all that had happened, from the moment the four children discovered Peterwinkle beneath the library to the moment they were losing the race against the Blackmouths and the monkey-like mouths visible only to Beatríz, careful to announce to Poplar before beginning the long narrative that the last time they saw Thorn he was alive, but engaged in a fierce battle. When they got to the part of the battle raging on the field between the castle of the Queen and that belonging to Taralina, the girls paused at length to ponder with Poplar what might have happened to Thorn—as well as to the others.

      As she listened attentively, Poplar was enveloped in both deep sorrow and profound gratitude, while keeping alive a little fire of hope that, no matter what, she would see her mate again. And she was nearly ecstatic over the abundance of first-hand information about Thorn that stretched well beyond their separation of more than two hundred years ago, virtually to the present day. Poplar was gladdened by the children’s knowledge of her, and cheered, as well as deeply saddened, by Thorn’s words of love and longing for her. She did not, however, ask whether Thorn was still looking for her, or at least still hoping she was yet alive somewhere.

      “But, Poplar, I have to ask, quickly,” Beatríz said, when the girls’ story was concluded, and before other questioning by Poplar commenced, “what were those things I saw—or thought I saw—when my eyes were closed, and that Elli said she couldn’t see—that looked like giant monkey mouths, with lots of arms and hands, just floating in the air and laughing hideously—and that, and I don’t know why, but that I called OOnwees?”

      “Yes, the OOnwees, Beatríz; you were seeing the OOnwees.”

      “And what are they exactly?” interjected Elli.

      “They represent insatiable avarice—always at the core of death and its continual dying.”

      “The avarice of what?” said Elli.

      “What do you mean, child?” said Poplar.

      “The avarice of what creatures, Poplar? The avarice of what creatures that have died?”

      “I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking me, Elli,” said Poplar, with a quizzical look on her tilted head. “Avarice is of nothing but itself; it can inhabit and take over other creatures, and typically it does—in fact, as far as I know, always does—outside of the OOeegaltabog, that is—but it is of itself and by itself in the OOeegaltabog, where it, all alone, dies and continually dies, thinking it is consuming something, consuming everything it attempts to devour, but consumes nothing except itself—growing always more hungry and more thirsty, just when it thinks it has satisfied its hunger and thirst.

      “So, in other words,” said Beatríz, still nibbling on what remained in her basket of nuts and a few berries, “they would not have hurt us—they can’t hurt us?”