Bubbles wanted one thing in this world: a warm shelter where every stray cat in Gator Brunch got fed, brushed, and loved. He had the cat food. He had the litter boxes. What he did not have was a floor to stand on, because the porta-potty he'd been fixing up as a supply closet had just swallowed him whole. The teleportapotty, he called it now. One second he was screwing a shelf into the plastic wall. The next, the door spun sideways and sucked him down like a drain. Blue chemical water sloshed over his glasses. Something ripped. He landed face-first in warm mud, coughing, both thumbs still gripping a screwdriver. He sat up and wiped his glasses on his shirt. The mud smelled sour. A cloud of flies buzzed off a puddle. Somewhere close, water dripped through leaves. Bubbles blinked at the mess around him and, honestly, felt calm. "This," he said, "reminds me of home." It did. The puddles, the smell, the busted feeling of landing somewhere you didn't plan to be. Ricky and Julian had dropped him in worse ditches on purpose. He climbed to his feet, checked that his glasses hadn't cracked, and looked up. The trees were wrong. One tree hung above him like a green waterfall, its long branches dripping ivy, blue and pink flowers glowing in the shade. Bubbles had never seen a tree glow. He pointed his screwdriver at it, just in case. Then something moved in the roots. Small. Orange. It padded toward him on black paws, and Bubbles's whole chest went soft. "Oh," he whispered. "Oh, you poor little kitty." The creature had a bright fox-colored coat and a white chest and huge dark ears. Bubbles crouched low, the way you do so you don't spook a stray. He held out one hand. "It's okay, sweetie. Old Bubbles won't hurt you. You lost too, buddy?" The kitty stepped closer. Then it wagged. Not one tail. Two. Two fluffy tails swished behind it, curling like smoke. Bubbles froze. He counted again. "That's... that's two tails, bud. Cats got one tail. That's a rule." His voice cracked. "Where the frig am I?" A shadow slid over the mud. Wind hit his face. Bubbles looked up as something enormous dropped from the sky and landed hard between him and the two-tailed cub. It had a lion's body and an eagle's head, gold feathers, a curved black beak. It folded its wings and fixed one yellow eye on Bubbles. He raised the screwdriver again. It shook. The fox cub darted behind the giant beast's leg like it belonged there. Bubbles understood then, cold in his gut. This was not Gator Brunch. This was not any trailer park. And the stray he'd tried to rescue already had a guardian, one that stood taller than Bubbles and stared like it was decided about him. "Okay," Bubbles said quietly. "Okay. New plan."

Bubbles backed away from the griffin slow, hands up, until the mud swallowed his shoes. He didn't run. Running spooks animals. Instead he turned and walked, muttering to himself. "Okay, Bubbles. You need a plan. You need to find out where the frig you are." His arc goal hummed in his chest under the fear. Somewhere behind him were his litter boxes, his cat food, his whole dream of a shelter. None of it mattered if he couldn't get home first. He pushed through wet ferns and came out on a rutted dirt track. A road meant people. People meant maps. He followed the ruts until the trees thinned and a building leaned into view. Weathered timber. A sagging red roof. A carved sign hung crooked over the porch: Old Traveler's Tavern. Bubbles nearly cried. "A bar. A frigging bar. Now we're talkin'." He stopped one step onto the sagging boards. A shape sat between him and the door. A turtle. But not a turtle you'd find under a trailer. It was the size of a truck, its shell scarred and mossy, its beak hooked like a can opener. It didn't move. It just watched him with one ancient eye, the way the griffin had watched him. Guarding the door. Bubbles's stomach dropped. "Course there's a giant snappin' turtle. Course there is." He looked at his screwdriver. Useless. He looked at the turtle's jaws. They could take his arm clean off. But through the dusty window he could see the glow of a fire and shapes moving inside. Someone in there knew this world. Someone in there could tell him how to get back. He crouched, the way he crouched for strays. "Easy, big fella. I'm not here for trouble. I just gotta talk to somebody inside." The turtle's beak parted. A hiss came out, low and long, like air leaving a tire. Bubbles took the risk. He shuffled sideways along the porch rail, keeping his back to the wood, eyes on the beak. His heel found the door. He shoved it open and fell backward through it. The turtle lunged. Its jaws snapped shut on the doorframe and tore off a chunk of timber the size of Bubbles's head. Then it settled again, chewing wood, uninterested. Bubbles lay on the tavern floor, chest heaving, glasses crooked. Boots surrounded him. He looked up at strangers he had no name for, at lamps that burned with no bulbs, at a scraggly cypress branch nailed over the bar like a trophy. On the wall behind the counter hung a map. Old, stained, covered in coastlines and names he'd never read. He climbed to his feet and pointed at it. "Okay," Bubbles said, breathless. "I dunno where I am. But that map does." He was inside now, alive, and for the first time since the mud, he had somewhere to start.