My paws rested on the edge of the window in my office as I stood to gaze out. I had unlatched and opened it just a few minutes before in hopes of getting some fresh air into the room, but had quickly found myself distracted by the sight outside and my whirring thoughts processing the events of the chaotic morning. The air drifting into the space was chilled but not too harsh, simply sitting in the atmosphere with a touch of frostiness. It was a suitable temperature for snow and yet no snow sat on the ground here.

Lottie had found me just as I had arrived at my office door again after leaving the conversation with Lyle. She hadn't visited me for long at that point but had let me know again exactly what Lyle had told me earlier. She was working on preparing my schedule, which she would give to me as soon as she was able to print it, and added that she would have my first assignments with it. This was something I had not been aware of beforehand. She had suggested that I didn't yet worry about completing the work, as it was related to the work as an instructor that I hadn't learned how to begin, but advised that I glanced over it when I could and that I took the day to get settled into my office instead.

Now, it was shortly after eleven-thirty. I had spent the first hours of my workday organizing and arranging my office to my liking to make it feel more like my own, utilizing Lottie's suggestion to its full extent. Her warning after she had initially pointed out the office to me had proved to be correct as I had drawn open drawers of my desk to find assorted abandoned paperwork that I had been instructed to clear out. For the first hour into the morning, I had been wholly preoccupied with relocating papers such as formal essays several pages long, a typed complaint of the crushing weight of the responsibility of both interior designing and fashion modeling, and signed requests for various advancements. I had struggled to find a different home for them to sit until I would bring them to Lottie, so over time, a small heap of papers grew on the very end of my desk that I, at the very least, kept neat.

From where I stood, I could see small clusters of animals moving to and from the building across the salmon-pink paths. Some of them even noticed me standing at the open window as they passed and glanced up to look at me, but they didn't linger on the sight of me for too long. With the number of animals straying along the paths outside, I could barely even imagine how large that number must have been inside the building on the first floor below me. An image of a room so busy that it was a wonder that there was still space at all flashed through my mind, sending a sharp clench to my stomach. I abandoned that thought as soon as it had entered. At least I wasn't anywhere near the crowd.

I removed myself from the window again, deciding it best not to dwell in one place and waste the day away. I withdrew my paws from the window's edge and retreated into the room, sweeping my gaze across it as I continued to imprint it into my memory just to acknowledge that it was mine rather than surrendering to a creeping suspicion that I was somewhere that I wasn't meant to be.

It was a somewhat small, yet cozy space with sunlight dancing freely across the polished wood floors and midnight gray file cabinets bordering the back walls. An ashy-colored desk sat towards the back of the room—A wide rectangle table projecting from the pale wall with a tall pearly computer screen sitting atop—A white keyboard on the other side to match it, and the bundle of papers I had deserted at the edge. My briefcase was still positioned upright beside the black office swivel chair, in which I lowered myself into a seat after crossing the room to return to my desk.

An ache had begun to eat away at the edges of my stomach in hunger. I hadn't had anything but an apple for breakfast at hardly six o'clock, so it had been several hours since I had last eaten. I nudged the computer mouse next to the keyboard to wake up the screen, aware that I didn't yet have any information to sign in yet but seeking to make sure of the time, and when the display came to life prompting for log-in details, the numbers at the bottom of the screen inched towards eleven forty. It was a bit late in the day to be still doing nothing. Was there something I was supposed to be doing?

I had managed to keep myself busy thoughtlessly running the tiny mouse across the computer screen and waiting for time to pass for some minutes before a knock on the door pulled me back to reality. I raised my eyes from the computer to find Lottie at the door, watching me through the glass as she patiently waited for my permission to enter the room. She wore a polite smile and carried a stack of papers in her arms, which told me that she had arrived to discuss my schedule and first assignments. I gave a nod to let her know that she could come in.

As Lottie opened the door and stepped into the room, I scooted my chair away from my computer and further down the desk to be able to speak with her, sitting up straight to keep from looking unprofessional.

"I hope you're settling in well," she said, quietly closing the door after her and turning to face me. "May I pull up a chair to check in with you for a minute?"

"Sure," I replied.

Lottie adjusted the stack of paper in her arm to reach out and take hold of the back of a chair that had been left at the wall, carefully dragging it across the floor to relocate it on the other side of my desk. I slid the heap of paperwork closer to the edge of the table to provide her with more space on the surface as she took a seat.

"I'd like to review your schedule with you first before we discuss your future assignments," Lottie pointed out, focused on the paper in her paws as she swiftly tapped the ends of the stack against the surface of the desk to neaten it before setting it down between us. What I noticed most quickly about the sheet on top was that it was decorated with colors, a color-coded scheme for a tidily laid out schedule. I watched as she delicately flipped the sheet around to face me instead. "Why don't you glance over that for a moment? I'll answer any questions that you have."

My eyes skimmed over the text and the colors of the schedule in front of me in silence. The first hour of the day between eight and nine was empty and held no color. There was no set work during that time. However, the next segment was three hours long, from nine until noon, and picked up my attention in particular. It was a red block of color, a subtle tint and not so intense that I wouldn't be able to comprehend the text inside, which disclosed in dark letters "Open Advisory."

"I'm not entirely sure what this one is," I admitted, raising my paw to point out the text in the red box.

Lottie squinted at the sheet of paper for a few seconds, scanning through what I was referencing before she straightened up in her seat again.

"Open Advisory," she read aloud, then explained, "That's the point in your day when you take out time to interact with customers. A few things that you'll be doing during that time are taking requests or answering questions. Once the doors open to the public, that's where you will spend your morning."

Just when I had begun to hope that I had escaped the crowd. The thought of standing in a heavily populated room trying to communicate with others over the sound of conversation bouncing off every wall flickered back into my mind as my eyes dropped down the list of events again.

"After that, we'll have our lunch break, which will last thirty minutes," Lottie went on as I examined the segment of the schedule where lunch was present, a pale yellow box in the middle. "We eat lunch in the cafeteria down the hall every afternoon."

A lunch. I had forgotten to pack a lunch. My eyes snapped up from the schedule to meet Lottie's at the realization.

"I didn't bring anything to eat," I confessed.

"Oh, no, don't worry about that," Lottie rushed to assure me. "Lunch is provided in the cafeteria, actually. My uncle administers the supply of meals. I would have let you know beforehand if you needed to bring food with you."

I relaxed at this answer. I wasn't going without lunch after all.

"I see. That's good," I remarked.

"Mm-hmm." Lottie gave a brief nod, hastily brushing her bangs from her eyes as she examined the schedule. "Yes, lunch is provided for you. You don't need to worry about that."

I snuck a glance at the schedule again to find out what came next after the lunch break would end. This time, it was a green block, stretching from twelve-thirty until three, revealing the word "Studies." I knew exactly what this must have been from the moment I laid eyes on it. It must have been the time I would soon spend as an instructor demonstrating the interior design process, as Lyle had explained to me hours earlier.

"Anyway, what you'll see next after lunch is titled Studies," Lottie launched into the next topic, restating what I had just discovered. "If I'm correct, this is something that Uncle Lyle has gone over with you before. This is where you'll apply the knowledge you'll gather on interior design to various lessons you will direct during the afternoon. I understand if you're not entirely prepared to begin that yet since there is still quite a bit of information to grasp. I'm thinking that this won't be an official part of your routine for the first week of your work so that you can learn how to proceed. You'll be put to the task of finishing those assignments after the second week starts."

I forced a nod to show that I was still listening to what I was being told, but I was already scanning the schedule in front of me again as something else caught my attention. The final portion of the schedule, a session from three until six, held a blue square which implied that some kind of work or event was present. And yet, the label that it presented read nothing more than "Empty." It was different from the period before the doors opened at nine, though, when I had no strict procedure to follow since that one hadn't been identified with a color block at all.

"Why does it say 'empty' at the end?" I inquired. "Am I still working during that time?"

"Yes," Lottie answered, examining the section of the schedule that provided the word, but the answer she gave was hesitant, as if she weren't sure of it herself. "Well, eventually. I will eventually have work for you to fill up that space. It's a new project that was just introduced recently, but it's still a work in progress as of right now and isn't yet developed enough to fit into the schedule. You'll be hearing more about it over the next few weeks as developments will continue to be made until a change is permitted in your schedule. For now, before the changes are made, it's not likely that you will have specific work during that time, but it's important that you do stay in the building until you are dismissed. You should take your schedule and put it in a safe place so that you don't misplace it, but if you do end up forgetting where you put it, you can let me know and I'll print out another copy for you."

A safe place to hold my schedule wasn't exactly something that I had right now, since I was still getting acquainted with the space and didn't have a set system of organization.

"Thank you," I said anyway, seizing the sheet of paper in my paws to remove it from the stack and hold it in front of me instead. The sheet below it at the top of the stack was mostly blank except for a title in bold letters stretched across the middle: Week of 02/24/13.

"This right here is the collection of your assignments for the first week that you'll be applying them," Lottie pointed out. "The second of March is the day when you'll be starting that officially. You don't need to worry about figuring out how you'll present the lessons until the day comes closer, but I still think it's best that you take today to read through it and make sure you're prepared. It might seem like a lot to process right now with the length of them, but once you fall into a routine, it's generally easy to stay on top of them."

I considered this, inspecting the inch-tall stack of papers in front of me. She was right—I couldn't quite grasp how I would succeed in taking in all of the information for a single week. However, I did have more than six entire hours left of my day as well as over a week to acquire an understanding of it, so I had a good chance of making headway into progress through it today alone.

"And with that, I think I'll leave you to it," Lottie decided, rising to stand from her seat and abandoning my assignments where they sat on the desk in front of me. She didn't yet leave, but set her paw on the heap of old paperwork beside it to bring attention to it. "Is this what you found while cleaning out your workspace?"

"Yes, it is," I told her, tossing my schedule back onto my assignments to carefully raise the pile of paperwork for her to grab.

"Thank you. I'll take care of that." Lottie took the paperwork from my grasp, wrapping it in her arms to carry it from the room. "As I mentioned before, I'd like you to spend today settling in and glancing over those assignments, if you can. Tomorrow is the first day that you'll be following the schedule. At nine, you'll leave here to travel downstairs to Open Advisory until lunch, and after lunch, you'll return here to finish your work until the end of the day. If you have any questions at any point, please don't hesitate to ask. Does everything make sense?"

It was all very straightforward, so I gave a nod to show that I understood.

"Yes, it does," I said.

"That's great. Just remember that lunch will take place in about ten minutes," Lottie reminded me. Her gaze lingered on me for a few seconds longer as if there was something left that she wished to say, but she said nothing more. Instead, she turned and started off for the door again, carrying the old paperwork in her arms as her high-heeled shoes clicked with every step on her way out.

In Lottie's absence, I stole the opportunity to review my schedule again. My eyes darted across the colorful boxes, allowing the new information to settle in my mind. A faint chill was working its way through the room from the open window, but I hardly spent a thought on it as I read through the text on the paper another time.

The door swung open again several seconds after Lottie had left, pulling my focus from the schedule to discover that she had already returned, propping the door open as she stood in the doorway to peer into the room.

"I'm sorry to bother you again," Lottie said. "Isabelle is on the phone for you. I promised that I'd bring you to the phone to speak with her."

Thoughts of Isabelle had completely slipped my mind before now which, as I realized at once, was somewhat selfish considering the heartwarming conversation we'd shared before I left for work. I could still manage to grasp fragments of memories of standing out in the snow with her and talking about the future. I had given her my work phone number last night on a slip of paper, but I hadn't anticipated that she would have been calling so soon. I abandoned my schedule on the desk next to my assignments and followed Lottie out of the room to answer the call where my sister waited for me.

The glossy phone sat in a gap in the wall at the end of the hallway and rested beside the receiver as the call was left to be picked up again. As Lottie dismissed herself back into her office, I continued onward to the phone, snagging it from the surface and tucking it under my floppy ear.

"Isabelle?" I prompted. It took a moment for her to respond as she came to realize that I had arrived at the phone.

"Hey, Digby," Isabelle greeted me after a couple seconds' silence. A touch of tiredness clung to her almost muffled voice on the phone. I wondered if she had returned to bed after I had left. "How are you doing? I just wanted to check up on you."

"Well, thank you. I appreciate that. I'm doing fine," I told her. It felt notably strange and unusual to have my voice be the only sound breaking the silence, but I dismissed that thought to continue the conversation. "There hasn't actually been that much work yet. Today, I'm mostly just going to be receiving instructions for the general overview of work I'll be starting in the future."

"What kind of work will you be doing?" Isabelle asked me. The strips of lights overhead shone harshly over the empty hallway, leaving streaks of a reflected glow, I noticed.

"Actually, there's going to be two main factors that I'll be focusing on," I explained into the phone. "Lottie has assigned me to the working positions of both an instructor and a judge for the home design. That means I'll need to complete work from both areas of focus."

"Doesn't that seem like a lot of work?" Isabelle inquired. As she was speaking, the sound of the door to the first office swinging open caught my attention, and I cast a glance over my shoulder to see Lottie emerge again. She flashed me a brief smile before hastily walking off down the hallway towards the opposite end.

"It could be," I said, turning my focus back to the conversation at hand. After all, it wasn't an easy task to guess how much responsibility would be hanging over me when barely half of it was presented to me right at the beginning. "But don't worry. I'm sure that I'll be able to handle it."

"Good," Isabelle replied. A quietness stretched through the call for a few seconds as she seemed to be trying to come up with something to say before she spoke again. "What will the work look like? What does Lottie have you do?"

"Since I haven't officially started, it's a bit difficult to predict exactly what I'll be doing," I confessed, and then my mind strayed back to the discussion I had shared with Lottie just minutes earlier. "I was told about some of the basic assignments I'll be working on, though."

A door falling shut from a nearby hallway captured my attention as I proceeded with my explanation, but I tried not to let it distract me as I went on.

"As an instructor, I'll be working with animals outside of Happy Home in the process of designing and preparing homes for residents nearby. As a judge, I'll be helping to determine the pros and cons of previous designs to improve them to the best of my ability," I finished.

Another sudden quietness on the other line allowed me to register the sound of approaching footsteps, likely from the door that had just closed, but I didn't have the chance to question it before Isabelle spoke up again.

"That's great, Digby," she said. "I'm so happy for you."

"Thank you," I replied, tossing another glance behind me in time to see Lyle emerge from the turn in the hallway from the other end, making his way across in a speedy walk. "I think it's great. I'm finally getting a chance to move forward in pursuing a career. This is how I'm going to make a difference in this world and strive for a better future for myself and those around me."

"It's time for lunch, Digby," Lyle told me as he neared, making sure to speak in a hushed voice so as to not disturb my conversation. "Finish up quickly and head to the cafeteria when you can, please."

"Oh, it is?" I answered, shifting in my stance at the phone to be able to face him. I could have rambled all afternoon about what was happening in my day to Isabelle, but I couldn't ignore a direct request. "Right now?"

"Mm-hmm," Lyle said with a slow nod. "Lottie's there already, but if you're leaving soon, I can wait for you."

I adjusted the phone under my ear to address Isabelle again.

"I'm sorry, Isabelle," I told her. Seeming to sense that the conversation was coming to an end, Lyle stood nearby to wait, watching me for when I would be prepared to set off for the cafeteria. "My lunch break just started and we're about to head over to the cafeteria to eat."

We exchanged our brief goodbyes before I put down the phone to cut off the call and followed Lyle's lead as he walked away again. Fortunately, the hike to the cafeteria wasn't long or time-consuming, hardly thirty seconds at most before we had already arrived. I was brought back through the office hallway and down a left turn before we were faced with nothing but two milky-white doors, one on each wall. We passed through the right door, descended a short set of stairs into a short corridor, and arrived past the next doorway.

It was a rather empty room. The only pieces of furniture that were present across the floor was a single round table and a few folding chairs set up around it. A counter filled by bins of food selection projected from the far left wall, separated by a sheet of glass from what must have been the kitchen, where I caught sight of yellowish lights falling over the room. There was a sort of warm scent drifting through the air that I couldn't quite place, perhaps a touch of sweetness but definitely pleasant and comforting. I was going to enjoy the time spent in here.

Lottie seemed to have already retrieved her meal by the time I emerged into the room with Lyle. She was gripping the sides of her tray of food but wasn't seated, instead aimlessly straying near the table and distractedly glanced around the room as if she was waiting for something to happen. It was like her to wait for everyone to sit down before she would begin eating, so I didn't give much thought to this as I followed Lyle to the food counter.

With the growling ache clawing through my stomach, it was a chore to resist the urge to pile up my tray with everything that was available. I took hold of a tray from a slim stack on a cart beside the counter and proceeded to move along it, hastily dumping vegetables over rice in the middle as well as a small roll of bread off to the side before I was ready to start eating. A subtle warmth pulsed through the tray into my paws as I departed from the counter to make my way to the table where Lyle sat to eat and Lottie hovered nearby, but she stopped me before I could find a seat as well.

"Oh, Digby," Lottie spoke up, stepping to join me as I approached with my tray before her gaze broke away from mine to study her own tray. It held the same contents as mine, but was arranged notably more neatly and in individual sections. When she spoke again after a pause, it was with hesitation like her sudden outburst had brought embarrassment upon her. "It's okay if you would rather stay, but I was just wondering if you'd like to sit with me outside to eat lunch together."

I had no protests. While this was a soothing room to spend time in, sitting with Lottie as a friend for a while rather than a coworker would surely support our friendship to further exist outside of work.

"Sure. I think that sounds great," I remarked.

For whatever reason, it was as if this was an answer that Lottie had not expected as she lifted her head to look at me. Her dark eyes almost seemed to shimmer under the piercing lights above us.

"Really?" She said, then quickly recovered from her surprise to establish a plan. "There's a place outside at the back of the building where we can sit. There are some benches over there that we can choose from. I'll show you how to get there."

My feet had just been set into motion to follow Lottie as she set off for the door again when I tossed a glance back at Lyle at the table to check that our departure would be allowed. It took him a few seconds for him to realize that I was seeking his attention, watching him carefully as I uncertainly drifted towards the door waiting for permission to leave. Once he was aware of what answer I was looking for, he gestured for me to be able to leave in a manner that stated well, go ahead, why do you need to ask me?

The temperature had plummeted from where it had been this morning when I ventured into the outside world with Lottie once again. The air stung against my cheeks from the moment I stepped outside and the heat of my meal swirled up in faint steam, though I was relieved that the morning carried no icy breeze. After exiting through the back door of the building, I had previously been toying with the prediction in my mind that we would find nothing but a few benches along the back wall, but there was so much more than that. It was vaguely similar to the presentation in the front and possibly even more stunning. An unbroken patch of grass stretched across the wide area, enclosed completely by tall and precise hedge walls stretching up and over in thin green arches that the pale blue sky peeked behind.

Lottie and I found a spotlessly polished white bench near the door which we had traveled through and seated ourselves to begin our meal. Our food warmed me against the chill of the day, but the pinch of the frigid surface of the bench beneath me seeped right through my clothes. Even though I had plenty that I could have been complaining about, the sights made everything worth it—Through the space from the endless blue of the sky above, sunlight danced subtly and beautifully as the morning sang with tranquility's soft melody, and I was in the middle of it with a cherished friend.

Even the barrier of heat that swarmed me from the meal eventually wore down. Slowly, a shiver rose progressively within me, shooting through me with a tremble I strained to suppress to keep from Lottie noticing and worrying over. Probably should have grabbed my coat before I came out here, I thought to myself bitterly, scooping a bite of cooling rice to my mouth with a spoon that I clutched in my numbed paw.

"I come to sit out here often, actually," Lottie said, drawing my focus away from how much I felt like a literal ice cube as I glanced at her.

These were the first words that she had spoken since we had found our seat over five minutes ago. Right now, we were just about half finished with our meal. She didn't seem bothered by the cold at all and had simply been enjoying her food in a calm silence with a little smile creeping across her face. Very peaceful, I noticed.

"It's very soothing, you know?" Lottie went on. Her head was raised to examine the higher sights like the sky and the hedge arches hanging over us. "It's a sort of distraction, in a way. It's like time is holding its breath and nothing else exists outside of this place. I usually like to sit here alone to collect my thoughts, but I thought it would be nice to have you join me this time."

I brought my focus up to the arches as well, running through her words in my mind as she proceeded to finish her meal. I allowed my gaze to quietly flick from one to the other as silence swallowed up our conversation again, discovering only after careful examination that it wasn't constructed with only grass but was dotted with tiny pale pink flowers scattered across them. Well, if that wasn't a metaphor for life, I wasn't sure what was.

I finished the meal within the next couple of minutes. Lottie had finished shortly before I did and had set away her tray on the empty space on the bench to her left, so I followed that action and abandoned my tray on my right.

"What did Isabelle want to talk about?" Lottie asked me as I withdrew my paw from my tray. I could feel the outer rim jabbing into the side of my leg from the lack of space between me and the arm of the bench, but I ignored it.

"She just wanted to know what kind of work I'll be doing," I explained.

Lottie nodded slightly, considering this for a few quiet moments before she found a question to add.

"Are you looking forward to it?" she inquired. The deep darkness in her eyes shimmered with curiosity. "For when you begin tomorrow."

Suddenly, my thoughts strayed back to the first set of assignments that she had given to me and that I had left behind on my desk. Logically, it was entirely possible for me to begin working today, if working could have meant preparing the work I was yet to complete. Not only that, but I even had plans to once I would reach my office again after my lunch break would end.

"I am," I answered truthfully. "I think I'm going to do well."

"And I think you're going to do incredibly," Lottie told me. She had broken away her gaze from mine again as we continued to talk, though a few seconds after she had finished speaking, she silently inched closer on the bench to be able to gently lean her weight onto me as she rested her head on my shoulder. Because this was a common occurrence, I responded how I always did and withdrew my arm to carefully wrap it around her and hold her close to my side.

Time was meaningless as we sat together. For the first couple minutes that I held onto her, I had felt Lottie tremble with unmentioned shivers from the harsh chill of the day, but over time, the warmth that swarmed between us helped us to thaw out. Maybe it was the sweetness of Lottie's affection or the fact that I was finally warm again, but I easily found that I couldn't tear a smile from my face.

"We should hold events here," Lottie murmured after a while. I figured that she meant the general 'we' and not her and me, though this was a statement I hadn't considered.

"Why do you say that?" I asked her, adjusting my arm wound around her shoulders so that it wouldn't grow sore from sitting in the same place for too long.

"We don't use this space for anything significant. It's sort of just here. It's too impressive to be left alone, I think," Lottie explained. "I feel like something big is meant to happen here."

Lottie continued to sit in silence for a few seconds before she drew in a slow breath, pulling away from me to sit up again. I withdrew my arm to allow her to do this, but it seemed that the warmth we had shared still remained.

"Well, I think it's about time that we go back inside," Lottie announced, rising to her feet from the bench. "The break for lunch should be nearly over by now. I'll bring the trays back to the cafeteria if you'd like to just return to your office."

I pushed myself to stand as well, seizing the tray from the bench on my right and holding it out to Lottie. I noticed a moment too late that I had left behind a few bits of rice that stuck to the surface of the tray.

"Where are you headed?" I asked her as she delicately took the tray from my grasp.

"Open Advisory," Lottie replied, reaching down to the bench to pick up her own tray, which she had left clean and empty, and stacked it under mine before she offered a smile in goodbye. "I enjoyed spending time with you out here. We really should start doing this often."

And so, we parted ways after entering the building again, greeted by a sweep of warm air with our first steps inside. We climbed the stairs to the second floor together before Lottie went on to make her way to the cafeteria to return the used trays while I dismissed myself back to my office. Expectedly, I thrust open the door to find everything in the room exactly as I had left it. My assignments still sat in a pile on the desk next to the computer with my schedule tossed carelessly onto the top, the chair that Lottie had used still sitting at the edge of the table, and my own chair on the other side pushed away from the table as I had stood up about forty minutes ago to speak with Isabelle.

First, I took hold of the extra chair and carefully relocated it back to its original place in the room at the wall. Once this was done, my focus was already setting itself to the objective of glancing through my first assignment. Thoroughly reading that fright of a task would surely steal away what was left of my workday, if I could even finish in that time. I lowered myself into my chair, settling into a comfortable, yet polite seat and scooting in closer to the desk to reach for the stack of papers next to the computer.

An abrupt knock at the door snatched my attention just as I grabbed hold of the stack of paper. I dropped the stack again, raising my head to quickly discover Lyle on the other side of the door as I could see clearly through the glass. I had no chance to answer before he was already opening the door.

"Hey, Digby," Lyle greeted me, letting the door fall shut after him as he crossed the room unhurriedly to make his way to my desk. "Back to work, I see."

"I was just about to get started, yes," I told him, managing a confirming nod.

"Okay. I won't distract you for too much longer, then." Lyle came to a stop at the edge of the table, leaning to rest his paw on the surface as he shifted into a casual stance to address me. "Is there anything I can get for you? Some water? Tea? Coffee?"

I had never tried coffee before. It was a widely enjoyed drink that I hadn't yet come across the opportunity to try, that much I knew, but sometimes Mom and Dad delighted in a few cups after the iced tea in the mornings had run out. If they were so fond of it, then surely it was worth trying.

"Maybe some coffee, please," I requested.

"Great. I'll go and get that for you," Lyle offered with a short nod. "How do you take your coffee?"

The question instantly threw me for a loop. Was there a correct answer to this, or was he just messing with me?

"Carefully, because it's hot," I informed him.

Lyle blinked at me as if trying to process what I had just said to him. Silence filled the room as I waited for him to answer. When several seconds passed by and he did not, an awkward and involuntary smile crept its way onto my face at the sudden stillness. It was only then that Lyle appeared to accept my answer, pushing out a soft sigh to himself as he straightened up again and walked from the room, leaving me wondering if I had given the right answer.

I withdrew a drawer from the desk, slipping my schedule into the empty space before I thrust it closed again. I gathered up my first assignments, stacking them on the surface of the desk near me and beside the computer. From there, I began to read. I flipped over the main title page to set down the sheet on the desk's empty space on the right, examining the next page that lay before me to find that it wasn't much different.

SATURDAY

03/02/13

I quickly lost myself in reading the overview of the assignment. It began with an introduction of the first day, Saturday the second, and was something that I considered brief compared to the rest of the project. The introduction was five pages in length, composed entirely of paragraphs thick with crucial information. I pieced through them attentively to collect all of the material. I studied the basics of the lesson step-by-step, a short review of the data that I would soon be expressing through my own teachings.

I had just started reading the final page of the introduction when I caught the sound of my office door swinging open again. I raised my head to watch Lyle elbow his way through the doorway again, cautiously carrying a white mug filled almost to the brim with fair-colored coffee in one paw and securing a folded napkin underneath it with the other.

"Here is your coffee," Lyle told me, carefully bringing the mug to my desk and setting it down on the surface on top of the napkin in a way that was so slow that he couldn't possibly spill it. "I wasn't sure what you wanted me to put in it, so I just gave you some milk and a lot of sugar. Make sure to keep the napkin underneath it, otherwise you'll get stains on your desk."

"Thank you, Mr. Lyle," I said as he withdrew his paws from the mug again.

"Yeah, don't worry about it. I'm going to take care of you," Lyle replied, straightening up again to examine me from his full height. The lights shining down from the ceiling gleamed off the rim of his black glasses. "Well, it looks like you'll be in here for the rest of your day, then. Just finish up what you can with those assignments in the time that you have. Tomorrow, you'll be starting the real work. Do you feel like you're ready?"

"I think so," I answered.

"Good. I'll let you get started." Lyle retreated from my desk, but he ended up taking no more than two steps back towards the door before something evidently struck him to mention and he faced me again just as I had reached for my drink. "Oh, Digby."

"Yes?" I replied, removing my paw from the mug's handle to show him that I was listening.

"Asking you how you take your coffee is asking you what you put in it," Lyle explained, reaching over to give me a sort of teasing yet gentle smack on my arm before he turned to leave.

The remainder of the day passed by notably quicker than the first half. I spent the entire afternoon at my desk as the hours gradually slipped away from me. I worked through the reading of my assignments as mindfully as I could possibly manage, new thoughts to mull over of my near future spilling out into my mind until my workday reached its steady end. The thought occurred somewhere around four in the afternoon to jot down notes on the subject in order to register it thoroughly, so I made a mental note to myself to begin those notes during the hour at the beginning of the day tomorrow when I would have no distinct task.

For the rest of the day, a deep sense of satisfying peace swelled within me. The office and everything outside it were dead silent for the last hours of the workday with the exception of the occasional flipping of the pages, forming the ideal scene for a productive flow. My coffee slowly cooled again as the afternoon cycled through and I sipped from it periodically. It held a touch of sweetness in its flavor and was exceptionally smooth, sustaining my unbroken rhythm of motivation to finish the work and curbing exhaustion from the long day for the first several hours. I would most definitely be enjoying it again.

Ever so slowly, the gentle afternoon light flourished into the golden hour, filling the room with a glow almost like honey. It was shortly after five when the weight of the day began to settle over me. A tiredness clouded my mind as it sat in a soreness behind my eyes with the urge to leave for home and caused my determination to run lighter. But I kept myself reading for the next entire hour until six o'clock finally rolled around. Then, it was time to leave.

The evening had already left the point of the golden hour by the time I removed myself from the desk as vivid colors of purple and orange stretched across the darkening sky as the sun began to set. Neither Lottie nor Lyle had made an appearance at my office to dismiss me for the day, so I took the opportunity to request departure myself. I first went to Lottie's office to receive confirmation for me to leave, but after discovering that the room was empty, walked back across the hallway to Lyle's office to find the situation was the same.

I located Lottie and Lyle shortly after I had proceeded to search the second floor for their presence. I had just been shuffling through the hallway joined by the main conference rooms when movement through the thin window caught my attention. They were seated together at a table inside of the room, appearing to be preoccupied in conversation when I noticed them.

I gave the door a gentle knock to alert them to my presence, peering into the room through the window. This seemed to bring an end to their conversation as they both turned in their seats to cast me a glance. Lyle was the first to offer a visual response as he gestured for me to enter the room. With permission to spend a visit, I gave the doorknob a sharp twist and thrust open the door, but he was already speaking to me before I had a chance to raise my question.

"You're free to leave to go home at any time, Digby," Lyle told me as I pushed the door open on my arrival. "You've worked hard today. I'm just wrapping up a discussion with Lottie, but you don't need to stick around and wait for us if you'd rather head out for the day."

Lottie was watching me from her seat at the table beside her uncle, her dark eyes still as they fixed upon me in the doorway and a smile brightening her face after I had stepped inside, but she had nothing to contribute.

"Oh, okay," I replied, though I was slightly thrown off course by my uncertainty being responded to without needing to say a word of it. Instead, I brought a concern that had crossed my mind earlier in the hour out into the light. "Is there anything that I need to bring home with me when I go? Maybe a bit more preparation work to be ready for tomorrow."

"No. You may leave your work here to focus on later," Lyle explained. "There's no more preparation work than what you've already been given and I'm sure you've already gotten a fair start on that by now. I noticed that you came in this morning with a briefcase but you can leave that here as well if it's more convenient for you."

"All right," I acknowledged. "Well, I think I'll be going now."

I ducked out of the conference room to return to my office for the last time today, where I had abandoned my puffy gray coat in a crumpled heap under my desk before I had begun to reorganize the space in the beginning of the day. As I crossed the dim room to retrieve my coat from the floor, the feeling had begun to creep within me like it had been years and years ago that I had chucked it there in a hasty manner to be able to begin working. It almost seemed that I had been in this building for an entire lifetime, my first sight of it feeling to be so far away from me now. All the more believable that I would be here again soon.

I bundled myself up in my dense winter coat, tidied my workspace by tucking away my work into a drawer to pick up again tomorrow, and set off for home. The shrieking winds pinched fiercely at my cheeks as I pushed on through the snow, thoughts swirling like the harsh breeze of bursting into a warm house with an afternoon of nothing but relaxation in front of me. I journeyed back through the long stretch of snowy fields, following the wide path under the subtle glow of the recurring streetlights, and though the frigid air was enough to transform the walk into something unpleasant, the solitude held an enchanting peace like no other.

I knew that I would soon be reaching home when the path led me into the neighborhood I had just visited for the first time this morning with Lottie. The sky slowly dimmed in the opening of the evening as I made my way past the rows of houses, every step bringing me closer to my destination, and approached the front door at last to discover that someone was there already. Isabelle stood in front of the door, now dressed in an emerald green sweater-dress with long sleeves that reached across her middle as she wrapped her arms around herself to keep herself warm through the bitter chill. Despite the weariness that sunk into my bones, a smile instantly found my face at the sight of her standing there.

As she explained to me, Isabelle had been waiting outside for me to arrive for almost half an hour so that she could catch me when I got there and ask me how my day had gone since she had called before lunchtime. We hardly wasted any time before emerging into the house again to escape the cold, warmth from the house swarming us like a loving embrace. For the first time in several hours, I had the chance to just recollect myself and my thoughts to explain everything that was currently happening at work.

We sat down on the living room couch together as I went on to describe the day I'd had, the work I had completed, and the work I was yet to complete while she listened intently. Our conversation had only lasted a few minutes, though, since shortly after we had finally managed to sit down and talk, Mom made an appearance in the opening to the room to ask about my day, adding that dinner was being brought out to the table.

That night, we ate as a family and in jubilant celebration. We celebrated my first day officially working, my new future, my new beginning. We celebrated for the fact that nothing would ever be the same again and it was everything we could have wished for because it meant we had received the best blessing we could ever imagine. We celebrated everything that I had dreamed of and now had achieved at last. This was exactly where I wanted to be in this world, and nothing in it was going to bring me down.

The newness in the abrupt change in routine wore off quicker than I had imagined. It had been the second day at work that had sent me reeling at first. I had arrived at the HHDA by myself for the very first time with the same mindset locked in place that I had the previous day—Whatever I didn't know already, Lottie and Lyle could surely teach me. The hour to myself in my office completely flew by me as I reviewed the task I had been assigned yesterday, marking hasty notes along the sides as I promised myself yesterday I would do. Five minutes before nine and no later, Lottie showed up at my office to accompany me to Open Advisory.

Nothing could have prepared me for what I faced. Lottie had explained to me my main objective while I remained in that room until the strike of noon—Answer any questions from animals that I knew the answers to, direct questions with unknown answers to her, and take note of requests to bring to her later on—And yet, I entered the room absolutely unprepared for what was soon to come. I stepped through the doorway at nine o'clock sharp to find the room, a long and expansive space with piercing lights scattered across the ceiling and design exhibits lined up against the wall separated from the empty floor space by thick rope, occupied by no more than fifteen animals gathered in the room to study the sights.

It was at that moment that I had allowed myself a breath of relief, assuring myself that this was as busy as it was going to become, but as the hours crawled by and the room slowly became so packed with visiting animals that there was barely space to breathe, it proved itself clear to me just how wrong I was. With the first whack at the experience, every minute was stretched into a million as I spent three hours responding to conversation when prompted, awkwardly drifting around the room when not, and taking mental notes of suggestions that came my way, rehearsing them in my mind to keep them in memory.

After the second day of work, spending my morning and afternoon at the HHDA became regular. The first week slipped by with only brief, casual mentions of the new project that was in development, freeing up the final six hours of my day as I was not yet teaching, either. But Open Advisory didn't get much better for me. In fact, it soon sat like an unwanted obstruction on my schedule that forced me to cling to the time spent at my office at the beginning of the day as reluctance set in.

The problem was that I could imagine myself being skilled at general interaction, flawlessly gliding through my words in unbroken and productive conversations. However, when it came time to actually interact with others, it was as though all words had just been wiped from my mind in an instant at the same time as too many fragments leaped through my thoughts of what I could say and what I should have said instead before they even reached my tongue. I embarrassed myself frequently, leaving discussions with a flush of shame rising in my chest as I wondered to myself, why did I do that? Why did I say that? When this became a recurring process, I began to dread the first part of my day because I was destined to make a fool of myself one way or another.

Constructive meetings were held regularly every other Thursday in one of the main conference rooms, as I was informed. The meeting's purpose was to check in with the current work status, raise any concerns that one might have had, asking questions that hadn't been brought up before then, or to bring suggestions to the table for a brighter future for the HHDA. They lasted no longer than thirty minutes at most, taking out the final chunk of time in the workday. The next scheduled time that we would be meeting together was February twenty-eighth at five thirty in the afternoon. It was to be the first professional meeting that I had ever attended, so I would not disappoint.

The plan that I was seeking to stick to was that I would remain silent for the majority of the meeting unless spoken to directly, listening rather than advocating. I would make observations to carry with me to the next meeting so that I would know for certain how they would progress and I would even bind myself to the responsibility of writing notes that I would see fit, something that I hadn't often bothered with when I had still been in school. If everything went to plan, the meeting would advance smoothly.

I arrived at the meeting about five minutes before it was scheduled to begin. I had brought with me a few sheets of empty paper that I had retrieved from my office, a pen to write down notes with, ideas spinning through my mind that I had collected to bring up as suggestions, and an almost giddy smile that I couldn't pull from my face at the thought that I was about to be a part of something so crucial and professional. I was the last to arrive, as I came to realize opening the door to find Lottie and Lyle already sitting together at the far end of the table, and I reminded myself that I was not late to attend as I took my seat across from Lottie.

Nobody spoke for the five minutes that we waited to begin our meeting, so I stole the opportunity to scribble down the date at the top of my first page of notes. Somehow, Lottie already seemed distracted and slightly disoriented as she had laid out a maroon folder of paperwork on the table in front of her and was hurriedly flipping through it in the spare time that we had while Lyle occasionally sent a glance at the clock on the left wall to keep track of the time. The moment the clock shifted to five thirty, Lyle forced himself up from the table.

"Well, I think it's a good time to get started," Lyle announced, rising to his feet and stepping out from the table. Lottie hastily gathered up her paperwork and shut the folder to listen. "There's a few things I'd like to go over first. Once those discussions are complete, we'll move on to take questions or concerns or anything else that needs mentioning. I just want to get this first part done right away."

Lyle made his way to the wall at my right, which supported a tall, clean whiteboard that sent streaks of light down the surface reflecting from the ceiling's light and a black metal basket loaded with markers that clung to the edge by magnets. However, Lyle seemed to have nothing that needed writing as he stood at the whiteboard to face me.

"Digby, I'd like to check in briefly to hear where you are with your work," Lyle explained. "Are you settling in well? Do you need any extra support or for some changes to be made? Lottie and I can help you out with that if you do."

Memories of Open Advisory resurfaced in my mind again and the uneasiness I felt when asked to go there. For a split second, I considered raising concerns for this matter, but immediately I held my tongue and restrained myself from mentioning it. If you bring it up, you're going to sound selfish, I reminded myself. If Lottie can handle it just fine, then the same is expected of you. Otherwise, you're an embarrassment.

Disregarding Open Advisory, was everything else going well? There wasn't much else that I was doing during the day yet, unless the preparation work for Studies that would begin two days from now was counted. I had already scanned through the content of my assignment twice up to this point and had even added notes to myself for how I would present it, so in that sense, it was going incredibly.

"I think it's going very well," I said after a pause of consideration.

"Great. That's good to hear," Lyle replied. "Remember that you're starting your work as an instructor on March second. Make sure that you've got everything you need to begin before then."

"I will," I promised, but he was already turning away again to face the whiteboard after evidently being finished with the topic and moving on to the next one.

Lyle reached into the marker basket and withdrew an orange marker, unclipping the cap. He reached up and began to scribble something onto the clear surface but stopped after he had barely formed a line. He paused for a moment as he examined what he had written before wiping it away with his sleeve, mumbling something about the next topic not needing an extra note. He continued to erase the mark that he had created until all that was left was a slight orange smear before he shifted in his stance to look at Lottie and me again.

"Let's talk about this new project," Lyle said at last, snapping the cap back onto the marker and chucking it back into the basket. "There's been some ideas floating around about that, but nothing too clear. It's been more of a gray area than a genuine plan for quite some time, but it's reached the point where I can see it being put into action in the near future. We just need a few more arrangements to be made before that can happen. For example, we still need to find a suitable and memorable title for this project, but that will start coming up more once a bit more planning is done. For now, that's all I need to say about that."

Lyle removed himself from the whiteboard, unhurriedly making his way back to the table and carefully drawing out his chair again to take a seat.

"Now, let's discuss the last order of business," Lyle went on, lowering himself into a seat next to Lottie at the table. He inched the chair closer and politely folded his paws together on the table as his eyes peered out from behind his dark glasses to meet my gaze. "Digby, I'd like to ask you some questions. It's nothing scary, just a few things I want to get your thoughts about."

The ideas that I had come across while preparing myself for the meeting swarmed my mind again, waiting for their specific time to shine and leave my tongue. Maybe the time to share them was coming soon.

"Sure," I replied.

"You can take a moment to think about this if you need to find the right words, but what do you hope to achieve in completing your work here?" Lyle asked me, but before I had the chance to answer, he interjected with an abrupt addition. "Don't just say to get it done. That's not the answer I'm looking for. I want to know what brings you back to this building every day, in your own words."

This was something that had gone around and around my mind countless times since the day I had first received the letter inviting me to attend work at the HHDA, so the words found their way out without much consideration. As I spoke, I was rehearsing segment fragments that I had written in my mindspace weeks before.

"I think what I most want to do is help those around me," I explained. "I want to improve the lives of the animals who put their trust in me to do so. I want to share my knowledge with others and help them understand the way I've learned to. I want to express myself in a way that they don't see their visit as something that comes and goes and is never thought of again. With all of that, I think what I want most out of my time here is genuine connection."

Lottie was quietly watching me from across the table. She had lost her smile as she considered my explanation while I was speaking but didn't even seem to realize it herself. She had replaced the smile with a calm, contemplating glance. I could almost see the thoughts whirring through her mind through the darkness in her eyes.

"That's great, Digby. Thank you for your sincerity," Lyle told me. "Have you thought about how you plan to do this? How do you plan to put yourself out there and connect with others? I'm not just asking how you'll do it for the next weeks or even the next months. I want to know your ideas on a long-term scale as well."

Multiple answers raced through my thoughts at once. With the suggestions that I had gathered before the meeting and a dig into the response I had already given, I had myself an answer. I readjusted the feel of the explanation leaving my tongue to try again.

"As for the short-term solution, I'm determined to complete my work to the best of my ability and do my part to form connections that way," I replied. "As for the long-term solution, I actually had some approaches that I'd like to try. Not just for me, but for the future of the business."

"Okay. That's a bold announcement," Lyle remarked before he motioned for me to continue. "Go ahead."

With the green light, I launched into my next explanation.

"I was thinking that the best way to have a true connection is to establish some kind of trust first," I went on. "If trust isn't present beforehand, then the motivation to pursue a connection won't be there, either. I gave it some thought and I realized that trust is established not only by the desire to present yourself to others, but through the more time that you spend with others to learn for yourself what they're like for you to decide your stance on the connection. This is how I came up with the idea that we reach out and reconnect with businesses and individuals that the HHDA has shared connections with before to promote the most success. That way, they would already be aware of the business and its methods. Building a stable relationship is that much easier when connections have already been set in place before. I really think that..."

My voice trailed off when I saw Lyle's face. His silent stare had turned as sharp and pointed as a knife as his gaze fixed upon mine and though it wasn't quite a glare, I knew immediately that I had said something wrong. All of a sudden, any words that had been ready to leave me in the progress of my explanation had just been ripped from me and I couldn't find anything more to say.

The atmosphere had become very thin in a matter of moments. After a few seconds, Lyle finally broke his gaze from mine to sneak a glance at Lottie beside him, a glance that she returned hesitantly as she appeared to have no more of an idea of what was happening than I did. And then, at first without a word, Lyle pushed himself to his feet.

"Digby, let's talk in my office," Lyle advised. He was calm, from what I could tell, but the patience in his voice was gone as a sort of grim touch of a tone hung over it. Something was wrong. Whatever he had in mind to say to me, he clearly didn't want to say it in front of Lottie. Why?

"Okay," I agreed hesitantly, obediently rising to my feet in order to follow him out of the room. A jittery sensation like I had just eaten something rotten had already settled in the pit of my stomach at the lack of context and the secrecy of the situation and there was nothing I could do about it.

Lyle peered up at the clock hanging on the left wall. Only about fifteen minutes had passed since the start of the meeting.

"Lottie, you can pack up and head out a little early today," Lyle told his niece. "By the time Digby and I are done talking, it'll probably be about time to leave anyway."

"Sure," Lottie replied, her voice weighed by an uneasy tone as she appeared to still have no clue what had caused the shift in conversation. Quietly, she stood from her seat as well and wrapped her maroon folder in her arms to be able to carry it from the room, but lingered at the table with a whisper of concern shimmering in her eyes.

I shuffled through the hallway at Lyle's side as he directed me through the turns to reach his office. Lyle didn't say a word as we walked together, leaving my thoughts to become caught in a spiral of worries and questions about what was going on in the uncertainty his silence brought. What had I done wrong? Had I said something worthy of punishment? Lyle never seemed to care too strongly about much of anything else I had said to him, so why had it been this to push him over the edge?

Gulping back my apprehensive distress rising into my chest like an unwanted substance, I emerged into the office at Lyle's lead. As he started off towards the other end of the room without even a beat of hesitation, my feet found a stop near the door as if some compelling force was trying to drag me right back out the room and my eyes danced among the sights I had just stumbled into.

I had never stepped foot into Lyle's office before. It was remarkably different from mine. It still had the same desk and the same computer that sat on that desk, but every single thing in the room other than this we did not share. Dark wood shelves of books piled up against each wall, reaching almost to the ceiling on the left and right walls but only standing to about my eye level in the back. Several various plaques in bronze frames filled the empty space along the wall provided by the short height of the bookshelf. While my own desk was completely cleared off of objects, Lyle's desk in the back of the room was the home of numerous items and tools spread out across the surface surrounding the computer. His own window had been unlatched and opened like mine, causing nothing but a breath of the sun's rays to slink across the floor and sit in the untroubled air.

A great amount of life had flowed through here before I had even come to Happy Home. Before Lottie had even come to Happy Home. This was just another chapter in the stories that weaved through the room. And it seemed like that story was about to continue right here and now.

"Am I in trouble?" I asked. Lyle sent a glance over his shoulder at me as he proceeded to make his way to his desk, though my feet were rooted to the floor.

"No, of course not," he told me, arriving at his desk, but he didn't take a seat.

Lyle stood behind his chair and reached out to rest his paws on the back, shifting to lean his weight onto it, and when he went quiet, I wasn't entirely sure that he would say anything else. He stood silently behind his chair, gazing down at the untidy surface of his desk as if he couldn't bring himself to meet my eyes as I forced myself forward at last. It was just as I was allowing myself a halt a few feet from Lyle's desk that he spoke up again.

"Have you heard the stories of Redd the kitsune?" he asked, his eyes leaping up to look at me behind his thick glasses.

A bitter taste immediately found my tongue as a bone-deep dread spilled out into my stomach. I had never heard the name before, but the question alone made it seem like I knew it all too well. It was at that very moment that I began to question my safety, to question what kind of information I was about to get ahold of.

"No," I said nervously.

"He's a repulsive criminal, that's what he is. And a ruthless one at that. If you haven't heard of him, I'll tell you just who he is," Lyle replied. "For starters, he sells works of art, both in his own little emporium and on this cart that he has when he's traveling. That sounds generally innocent, right?"

I forced a nod, though I wasn't quite following what he was talking about. If all he did was sell art like anyone else, then why was he considered a criminal?

"It's meant to. That's exactly how he deceives you," Lyle warned, rising to his full height again as he withdrew his paws from the back of the chair. "He presents his work like it's for the greater good and builds trust through those who don't know him in order to gain a fortune out of them. It's sickening. And it isn't even just inflated prices, either. Half of that art he sells isn't even real art. It's a corrupted strategy where he actively hurts and takes advantage of innocent animals and rids them of their money just so that he can get rich from it."

My stomach throbbed with a sinking dismay. I tried to form the words to answer, to say something at all, but not a sound came out. Lyle had quieted again, stepping out from behind his desk to start to make his way back over to me with a break in his explanation that seemed to be waiting for me to respond. It was a response I could not give.

"It's a serious situation, Digby," Lyle told me as he approached, standing with me near his desk as we spoke. "I can't imagine what goes through his head to make him think it's okay to do this and keep on doing this or how far he goes just to fulfill his shameful scheme."

"Why are you telling me this?" I asked him. I had tried to keep my voice steady when I finally forced myself to speak up, but it felt like I was choking on the words.

"He tried to form connections with Happy Home many years ago," Lyle explained. He was no longer looking at me, but was instead studying the cluttered surface of his desk next to us again as if to continue to avoid my gaze. "And I almost let him, before I knew who he was. After the truth came out, I did everything I could to get him away from this establishment. I don't think that we would be in the same place we are now if I had let him involve himself in our methods. But he's not in the picture anymore and I haven't seen him around here since I got him out."

And just like that, it became clear to me that my security was not guaranteed here. Suddenly, I realized that I would need to be on full alert from here on out to make sure no harm was present, whether it was towards me or anyone around me. Redd hadn't made an appearance at the HHDA since he had been in contact with Lyle, but with the connections that had already been made, there was all the potentiality of his return when we least expected it. And the worst part about that was that I didn't have the faintest clue who I was meant to be looking for and had no key factors to help me identify him. He could have shown up among the crowd and I could never know until it was too late.

For several seconds, silence met the end of conversations as the warning of the end of my safety slowly sunk in. My head spun slightly as if I had just surrendered to a heavy blow and my heart thumped in my chest for the uncertainty of my future. In the quietness of the moment, Lyle hesitantly pushed back his sleeve to reveal a small wristwatch decorated with tiny white lines that he peered down at to check the time.

"It's just about six o'clock now," Lyle said, lowering his arm as he brushed his sleeve back over it. "Why don't you head out for the day?"

. . .

I didn't sleep very much that night.

For the majority of the time, I hadn't been entirely sure whether I was unconscious or awake. It was a night burdened by thoughts that plagued my mind, drowsy hallucinations taunting me through the hours, and the torment of midnight's lasting void. Each hour that I counted in the time that I lay awake only seemed to bring a new wave of suffering as if I was caught in this clock-timer plot of recurring pain.

Eleven o'clock. It was after this hour strike had come and gone had I accepted the fact that I wasn't going to be sleeping. Midnight. This was when the tears had first reached me. The warnings I had received from Lyle and the realization that it had provoked twisted my mind as I curled up under the dense darkness suffocating my bedroom and pressed out shaky, face-aching tears into the silencing surface of my pillow for the vulnerability of my future. One o'clock. I might or might not have been having an unpleasant dream of some sort when figures in the shadows began to creep throughout my room, ones that I had perceived in the moment to be Redd hunting me down and so I had hurled a full glass of water in the direction of one of them to make it go away. I wasn't entirely sure what had happened to the glass after that.

Two. Once I resurfaced into consciousness, several questions were worried over here. What did I do now? Did I talk to someone? Did I tell Isabelle about Redd? What kind of reality was I living in to allow something like this to happen? Three. I had somehow managed to catch my arm on the cord of my alarm clock and yanked it down off of the nightstand and onto the floor, causing a thunderous crash and a scream to break from my throat as I was already on edge. I had held my breath for at least seven seconds just to make sure that I hadn't awakened anyone. Four o'clock. More tears were forced out here, but less from what I had gone through yesterday and more because of the fact that I had completely missed my chance to get a good night's sleep.

I couldn't recall seeing anything later than four in the morning, so that must have been when I had finally cried myself to sleep, only to be woken up by the chime of my alarm clock three hours later to get ready for work. The soreness throbbing behind my eyes from the lack of sleep was almost enough to bring me to break down crying again, but I still pulled myself out of bed and proceeded to prepare to leave. It was as I was enjoying an apple for my breakfast that the idea struck me to speak with Lyle again—He had told me the news in the first place, and therefore he was the best source of insight into how dangerous the situation really was and maybe even for some kind of reassurance—And I clutched onto that idea on the entire walk to work.

I peered into the window of Lyle's office upon arrival to find him seated at his desk, working at his computer. When I knocked on the door to alert him to my presence, he quickly raised his head to cast a glance across the room at me before gesturing to allow me to enter. As I thrust open the door and emerged into the office, Lyle had returned his focus to the computer screen again, clicking something on the screen with the computer mouse.

"Good morning, Digby," Lyle greeted me after the door had fallen shut again and I had started off into the room. "Is everything okay?"

"Not exactly," I admitted, coming to a stop a few feet from Lyle's desk. He snuck another glance at me by my uncertain answer but then continued to examine the computer screen and click with the mouse as he listened. "I wanted to talk about what you told me yesterday."

The clicking stopped before he engaged fully in the conversation.

"What did you want to say?" Lyle inquired, leaving his computer as it was to rise to his feet from his seat to properly address me. The words exchanged in our last conversation spun through my mind again and the agony I had struggled through last night trying to make some sense of them.

"It really scared me, actually," I confessed, distractedly fidgeting with the hem of my sleeves to keep myself occupied as I spoke. "I couldn't stop thinking about everything that could go wrong. I'm scared that he's going to come back and try to hurt someone."

Lyle's sudden silence pulled my gaze back to him. He was still watching me but appeared to be contemplating what I was saying and the best response to it. After a brief pause, he drew in a patient breath to answer.

"I apologize, Digby. My intention wasn't to scare you, just to inform you. I think I might have delivered the message wrong if it caused you so much distress," Lyle told me. "I knew Redd directly a long time ago and I can assure you that the scariest thing about him is how much stupidity he holds. I meant it when I said that he's dangerous, but nobody here is at risk of being harmed by him. There isn't a chance of him coming back here. I made sure of that."

I wasn't entirely convinced that everything was okay. Now that I had considered the possibility of Redd making an unanticipated appearance at the HHDA, it was a losing battle to tear the thought from my mind.

"Are you sure?" I asked him.

"Completely," Lyle replied, stepping out from behind his desk to make his way across the room towards me in his usual unhurried stroll. "I can see that you're still anxious over it, but you have no reason to be. He's never going to hurt anyone here and that's a promise."

"But what if he comes back to mess with you?" I added. "He already knows you. He might come back knowing that you'll be here."

"He wishes he could mess with me," Lyle corrected me, pausing near me on his way to the office door again, and offered a gentle nod to help convince me. "Try not to worry about it anymore. Everything is under control."

The conversation echoed in my mind even after I had taken my leave from the office again. My uneasiness had steadied with the definite knowledge that everyone was safe, but I couldn't rip the thought from my head that there were animals in this world who tried to cause so much harm in the first place without even caring who they hurt or how much. An empty hollowness had settled in my gut as I made the journey to the break room, the door across from the cafeteria, to prepare some coffee to be able to sip on while I would glance through my work that I would present in Studies tomorrow.

The break room was a wide, yet cozy space. The floor was covered completely by dark gray carpet and three velvet, cushiony chairs in a deep purple color created a triangle shape in the middle. Marble counters lined the wall at the right of the door with various items and ingredients for preparing drinks like coffee or tea. As I emerged into the room, I quickly discovered that someone had gotten there first. Lottie was standing at the basket with the numerous flavors of tea and appeared to be restocking the bags as she cast a glance at me when I entered the room.

"Good morning," I greeted her, crossing the carpet to make my way for the red coffee maker next to the tea basket.

"Hello," Lottie said kindly in response as I arrived at the coffee maker beside her, reaching up into the cupboard above to retrieve a mug for my coffee.

I could hear the crackling of Lottie arranging the tea bags next to me as I watched the coffee pour down into my mug, waiting patiently for the beep that would signal it was finished. The conversation that I had shared with Lyle just minutes before continued to recite itself in my conversation and a prodding jab told me that something was missing. I had earned some crucial information, but I didn't exactly receive the reassurance I had hoped for.

Lottie always seemed to know precisely what to say when I asked for her help. Should I say something? I was going to say something.

The sharp beeping sound of my finished coffee sliced through the quietness in the room. I removed my mug from the coffee maker to set it in front of me, retrieving the thin carton of milk from the fridge at the end of the counter before I returned to my place beside Lottie. As I poured the milk, leaving the drink a fair color, and reached for the canister of sugar at the wall next to the coffee maker, I was already stringing together sentences in my mind for how I would bring up the topic. I tipped the sugar canister to begin pouring the sugar into my drink and spoke up at last.

"I was talking to your uncle about Redd. We were just talking about how..." I began, but my voice instantly trailed off with the sudden jolt of movement from Lottie beside me as she dropped the tea and whipped around to face me as if the statement had physically struck her.

"Digby, don't say that," Lottie urged. The shift in her emotions had been immediate. Just a moment ago, she had been completely calm, happy even, but as soon as I mentioned Redd, a clear terror had seized her with the distressed expression locked over her face and an anxious fidget in her stance. "Don't say that."

For just a second, all words had been snatched from me at the sight of such a response to such a general statement, but it was then that the thought occurred that Lottie must not have known that she was safe. Maybe she was questioning the security of her future like I had done last night, since she hadn't been there when Lyle had told me that Redd wouldn't hurt us.

"Mr. Lyle said that Redd isn't as intimidating as he seems," I assured her, but this reassurance didn't appear to help in the slightest.

"Digby, stop," Lottie whispered anxiously, paws shaking restlessly in her distress as she ran them over her face as if trying to soothe herself.

I struggled to find the best words to say to calm her and convince her that everything was okay, hastily resorting to the logical situation as it had been what helped me feel better.

"I just thought it was good to discuss what happened in case he ever came back to Happy Home," I told her.

With the impact that this reply caused, it became clear too soon that this was probably the absolute worst thing that I could have said. Just like that, Lottie was hysterical with fright. A fearful whimper escaped from her as tears began to stream down her face, which she gave a hasty and desperate swipe at in an attempt to brush them away, and she said nothing more to me as she burst into a rush back towards the door. As she went off across the room, the sound of her gasping sobs following her to the door, my heart dropped into my stomach when the truth tumbled down on me.

This wasn't just a bit of worry. This was utter panic.

I set down my coffee mug onto the counter so abruptly that the drink sloshed over onto my paws, sending a piercing pain to shoot through them from getting burned, but Lottie was already thrusting her way back through the door.

"Lottie, wait!" I exclaimed, springing into action to dash to the door swinging shut to follow her, but when I broke through the doorway into the hallway again, my head on a frantic swivel to find which way she turned, she was gone.

A slight tremble had found its way to my own paws as well as I flicked the coffee off of them. The entire interaction left me jittery and shaken up while a fragile sensation crept through my very being as the image of Lottie's tearful face still lodged itself into my mind. Being someone who frequently held a sturdy grasp over her own emotions, the way she had completely lost control quicker than I could even ask why wasn't a comforting sight. How could Redd frighten her so badly?

It was at that moment that Lyle appeared at the turn of the hallway from the offices to my right after evidently rushing to get here, a concerned look plastered over his face as he emerged.

"What's going on? What happened?" he urged to know. "What did you do?"

"I don't know," I confessed anxiously. My heart was thumping heavily in my chest. "I started talking about Redd and she just ran off."

"Oh," Lyle said, turning to stare back the way he had come from, the way Lottie must have gone, as he considered this. For a few seconds, he didn't say anything more as he continued to look down the hallway as if Lottie was still there, and then he shook his head slightly. "Yeah... No, don't do that."

I opened my mouth to ask how it could have caused such a reaction in the first place, but then a different thought slipped into my head.

"Has she met him?" I asked.

"No, thank goodness." Lyle didn't tear his gaze away from the hallway for another long pause, but eventually, he glanced back at me at last. "She's terrified of him. That's why I didn't want her to be there when I told you about him. Even just talking about him makes her panic like that. The idea of who he is and what he's done absolutely frightens her."

I felt like I was trapped back in the same conversation as when I had first heard about Redd. A sour, gross, stale-tasting feeling coiled inside of me as I was caught in yet another situation where I was suddenly finding out what was wrong with everything around me. I had no words to answer this. Seeming to realize that I wasn't going to respond, Lyle went on.

"I made the mistake of talking about him with her mother and father where she was able to hear it when she was much younger," he explained, scrutinizing the polished floors beneath us as if he had found something there that he had more interest in than me. "That's scary enough for a child to hear, I'm not surprised that she felt anxious about the idea of him then. She was young enough at the time that she probably could have forgotten about him if I was careful what I said around her, but her fear of him now has become terribly worse and there's a lot I'd like to say about the reason why."

Lyle's tone as he spoke had become increasingly tense as his anger slowly began to rise, but he stopped in his statement to draw in a deep breath to calm himself down. After a stretch of silence, seeming to be somewhat collected again, he allowed himself to continue.

"When her parents found out that she was a bit scared by him, they used him in ways they could get her to behave," Lyle went on. "I don't know what kind of things they said about him when I wasn't there, but at times when I was, I caught them telling her things like if she doesn't act in a certain way, the evil kitsune would come and yell at her until she did. Or if she didn't do something the minute she was told to, it was that the evil kitsune was going to find her and make her do it. They didn't even need to know who the evil kitsune really was, they just knew that it got their own daughter to obey them. That's a big part of the reason I don't speak to them anymore."

It had become significantly difficult to breathe in properly. My mind was reeling with thoughts and an urge gripped me that I wasn't entirely certain whether it was to vomit or to scream. She had been seven years old when she went to live with Lyle.

"I got her out of that house as soon as I could, but because of so many years of putting the idea into her head that someone was going to find her if she didn't do as she was told, she can't let go of that fear that Redd is going to track her down and hurt her somehow," Lyle told me. "She can't even call him by name anymore, much less talk to somebody about him. Sometimes she still wakes up in the middle of the night in tears with dreadful nightmares thinking that he's coming after her."

And that was it. That was the world that I was living in. That was what reality was.

A sensation that I had never experienced before was very slowly conquering my being. Through the numbness that crept through me like someone had pressed ice to my chest until there was no feeling left to me at all, it felt like a part of me had been silenced and destroyed after everything I went through in the last couple days alone. It felt like everything that had happened had knocked me down before I had the chance to even realize I was on the ground and could do nothing about how damaged it left me. It felt like my mind was being stretched and roughened at the edges as I was hurled into so much that was wrong with the world, a world that felt to come down in flames around me while I could only stand and watch.

I didn't know if I was meant to be angry. I didn't know if I was meant to be sad. I didn't know if I was meant to be scared. I didn't know much of anything anymore. But with all of the uncertainty that sunk into my mind, there was one thing that I knew for sure.

No one was going to hurt Lottie ever again.

"You've still got a bit of time before you need to go downstairs, so I suggest you return to your office for a while," Lyle spoke again when I found myself unable to. "We've both got some work to do still."