Disclaimer: this is not actually a mystery. It was originally intended to be, but it did not work out that way. It should,more accurately, be called a “tale” or perhaps a “saga” or “story.” However, I liked the word “mystery” too much togive it up…so please ignore the inconsistency of the title with the story. So, enjoy!

Sometimes a guy needed time alone.

Oh, it was nice having three siblings the same age, but when all of them were girls, even mostly un-girly girls, hesometimes needed time away from them.

Therefore, one afternoon, after school, Ma’or chose to do his homework in his room, without his sisters, who’doccupied the dining room table again.

When his homework was done, he stood up and stretched, then looked around his room. There wasn’t much to do,really - he had the bed, night table, dresser, toy car (which he privately felt he was a bit old for now that he was ateen), and the anteater.

Which…was something weird about the anteater?

He peered more closely at it, frowning pensively.

He couldn’t quite put his finger on what was wrong, but he knew that something was.

He changed into cat form, then went over to sniff at the anteater.

His paw brushed against it.

His eyes widened.

“Whoa.”

* * *

“Kids!” Maddie called, watching as Nine set out plates of salmon. “It’s time for dinner!”

Stella came into the room and pecked her on the cheek as they all heard the rush of feet on the stairs.

They’d all sat down when it became obvious that one place was empty.

“Where’s Ma’or?” Stella asked.

The girls looked at each other and shrugged.

“He said he couldn’t stand the girliness today,” Astraea said.

“So he went off to his room by himself for the afternoon,” Seren added. She shrugged. “I don’t get that wholealoneness thing.” Then she frowned. “It’s not like him to miss dinner, though.”

“Maybe he wasn’t hungry?” Roxanna suggested.

“I’m sure he heard your call, Maddie,” Stella said. “If he wants to come down, he will.”

“And I will place his plate in the fridge if he does not,” Nine said.

The girls exchanged glances, none of them really believing that Ma’or would actually miss dinner, but they decided tolet him have his time alone.

They’d check on him after dinner.

* * *

After dinner, Seren led her sisters up the stairs to Ma’or’s room. She knocked on the door, and, when he didn’tanswer, knocked again.

When he still didn’t answer, she frowned at the door.

And then she opened it anyway.

Roxanna looked at Astraea, who shrugged and followed Seren in to their brother’s room. Roxanna sighed, butentered anyway.

“Where’s Ma’or?” she asked, looking around the room. “Didn’t you say he was in his room?”

“I thought he was,” Seren said. “But he’s not. Not even as a cat. I looked under the bed and everything.”

Astraea sprawled on the bed and looked around. “Doesn’t Ma’or only have one stuffed anteater?”

Both of her sisters looked at the two anteaters, brows furrowed. “He does,” Seren said slowly.

“So why are there two in here?” Roxanna asked.

Seren frowned as she looked at the anteaters. “Something is…weird.”

“What?”

“The anteaters. Both of them. Something is…off.”

“Any idea what?”

“No.”

Astraea rolled over onto her back. “Why don’t you investigate, then?”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“Turn into a dog and look at them that way, duh.”

“That’s…not a bad idea.” Seren threw her head back and became the dog, then walked over to the anteaters. Shebarked at them, once, then shrugged as Roxanna moved out of her way.

Her paw brushed against the nearer anteater. Her eyes widened.

And then, suddenly, there were three anteaters in the room, the third magenta.

Roxanna’s eyes widened and she squeaked. Astraea rolled back onto her stomach, looked at the three anteaters, andgot off the bed. “What the hell?”

“I don’t know! She just touched it and turned into an anteater!”

“Touched it? Hm.” Astraea knelt down and looked at the anteaters.

“Astraea, don’t-”

She was too late. Astraea had already touched the magenta anteater.

Luckily, nothing had happened. Astraea reached over and touched both of the cerulean anteaters, staying human allthe while. “I wonder if it’s related to magic use.”

“Please don’t. I don’t need three anteaters for siblings.”

Astraea rolled her eyes. “Take a risk for once.” Still touching the third anteater, she turned invisible.

“Please go visible,” Roxanna muttered. “I can’t deal with an invisible anteater as a twin.”

She sighed in relief when Astraea turned visible once more, still human. “So it’s not magic that’s doing it.”

“No, but I felt something off when I was invisible.”

“With all three?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you - do you think Ma’or’s anteater is actually a person too?”

Astraea’s eyes widened. “I hope not. He’s had that since we became kids. But…”

“But?”

“Yeah, I do think so.”

“Oh no,” Roxanna whispered. “I don’t…there’s got to be a way to change them back.”

“And we’re going to have to find it. We don’t need siblings who are stuck as anteaters forever.”

“Are we sure it’s forever?”

“Well, I doubt Ma’or’s anteater would have chosen to stay that way if it had a choice. And Seren and Ma’or wouldhave turned back by now.”

Roxanna rubbed the back of her neck. “I have no clue where to start.”

“Me either.” Astraea sighed. “I guess that means research.”

“Great. Can we at least get our friends to help? I mean, granted, don’t want to tell the moms, but…”

“Yeah. Friends are good. You call Ziggy, I’ll call Susanna, and whoever’s done first can call Katja.”

* * *

“What the hell was that?” Seren asked as she felt something odd, then suddenly found herself in the body of a stuffedanteater.

“Seren!”

“Ma’or?” She looked at the two anteaters in front of her. “Which are you?”

“I’m on your left.”

She looked at him with one eye, then looked at the other anteater with the other. She tried to turn her head to lookat the strange anteater more clearly, but found that she couldn’t. “Who are you?” she asked.

“My name is Vesper Veneficus.”

“And how’d you end up a stuffed anteater?”

“Some witches got mad at me.”

* * *

They’d held off their mothers and father by telling them that Seren and Ma’or were having twin time. Then Astraeahad started going through books while Roxanna went on the internet.

Roxanna reflected that it was very odd to be hiding research with SSX3 whenever her parents came into theroom…rather than hiding SSX3 with schoolwork.

Astraea did much the same with one of their mother’s romance novels.

Astraea then dragged Roxanna up to bed early. Roxanna was confused, but went to bed willingly anyway.

She’d expected to do more research that night, though.

Two hours later, she was woken up rather abruptly by someone shaking her. “Astraea?” she asked groggily.

“Come on. We’re not going to be able to hide this if they’re still anteaters tomorrow, which means we need to solve ittonight.”

Roxanna rubbed her eyes as she sat up reluctantly. “And how are we supposed to do that? Mum put bells on thedoor for a reason.”

“The door is only one way out.” Astraea walked over to the window and opened it silently.

Roxanna looked at her sister, then the window. “You’ve been doing this for a while.”

“Well, yeah.”

After a quick change of clothes, Astraea dropped out the window to the ground. Roxanna sighed, then changed herown clothes and followed.

“So where are we going? Dad’s probably awake - no way can we sneak into the study.”

“Ah, but the library is very easy to break into.”

“The library? You sneak into the library?”

Astraea shrugged. “Sometimes. It’s somewhere to go.”

“To the library, then.”

* * *

Have only fiction, leans towards magic. Maybe?

Susanna glanced at the text message from Starchild. They’d quickly set up a system of all of the teens texting eachother, in order to avoid the yells from the parents if the phone rang or they talked too loud - or too late.

She picked up the phone to text back.

Have some magic books. Will look.

Another text message came soon after, from Katja.

Faking sleep til parents are gone. Will use internet then.

Thanks guys. This message came from Astraea. All help is good! R + me in library.

“Susanna, what are you doing in the library?”

“Aunt Rosalie, hi.” She thought quickly. “We’ve got this writing assignment for school, and I was thinking I couldwrite a story involving magic, and, well, your books are so fascinating!”

“It’s time for you to go to bed.”

“Oh, but, it’s so intriguing! Can’t I read for a bit? I could take the books up to my room…”

Rosalie frowned. There was no reason to deny Susanna the books, and she did like to make her happy - when shecould. “Alright. Grab a few books and take them up to your room.”

Susanna stood up, smiling, and kissed Rosalie on the cheek. “Thank you, Aunt Rosalie.”

“You’re welcome, darling.”

* * *

Seren and Ma’or listened avidly to Vesper’s story.

He told of how he’d met the witches, and somehow managed to get on their nerves.

And he told of his “punishment” for angering them - being turned into a stuffed anteater.

Apparently the witches had wanted to eat him, but he was too old, so they settled for changing his form, forcing himto live as an anteater forever.

“…So how long have you been like this?” Seren eventually asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. What year is it?”

Seren and Ma’or exchanged a glance as well as they could without being able to move. Then they told him the year.

“Huh,” he said. “Has it really been 200 years?”

“I guess?” Ma’or said tentatively.

“Wow, doesn’t seem like that long. I guess I never notice the day to day changes.”

“But how do we change back?” Seren asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. I mean, I tried for a while, but I couldn’t move, so that was kind of pointless. After that, I justaccepted it. Getting hugged by kids is relaxing, and I can sit and think as much as I want.”

Vesper seemed oddly philosophical about the whole situation. Seren and Ma’or were not nearly so sanguine.

“There’s no way to change back?” Ma’or asked.

“Not that I know of.”

“No one knows you became an anteater, though, right?” Seren asked.

“Just the witches, and I doubt they’ll change me back.”

“Well, we’ve got one thing you don’t - Roxanna and Astraea saw me change into an anteater, and probably figuredout that you did, too, Ma’or. They’ll be working on trying to fix us. And when they do, we’ll fix you too.”

Ma’or looked around. “Weren’t they in here earlier? Where did they go?”

“They left?”

“Well, they’re not here.”

“Has that much time passed?” Seren tried to look behind her, even to see out the window, but she couldn’t move.

“Time seems to move more quickly like this,” Vesper said. “I had no idea it was 200 years until you told me.”

Seren and Ma’or exchanged a glance. “I hope it hasn’t been that long,” Ma’or said quietly. “I’d really like to changeback to human soon.”

* * *

Throughout the long night, the kids worked.

Starchild, Redwood, and Ziggy read fictional books that incorporated magic, searching for ideas on how their friends(and significant others) might have become animals.

Katja searched the internet, looking for information that wasn’t easily found. Luckily, she had the computer skills tohack into places she shouldn’t have been able to reach.

Susanna read actual books of magic, some of which were fairly disturbing. She didn’t tell her friends the disturbingparts, just as she’d never told them that her parents and aunt were zombies.

Roxanna and Astraea sat in the library, exploring both the books and various websites. Roxanna also integrated all ofthe information that was coming in from their various friends, turning it into a coherent whole.

It was almost three in the morning when she turned around in her chair. “I think we’ve got this.”

“Let me see.” Astraea stood up and came to look at what Roxanna had typed up. She read it quickly. “I think thismight work.”

“Only problem is where to find some of these ingredients.”

“Start googling. I’ll text Katja.”

Roxanna nodded and started searching.

Astraea coordinated the text messages and cleaned up the books when none were coming in. They didn’t wantanyone to know the library had been broken into, after all.

It took almost another hour, but they eventually figured out where to get everything they needed.

Then they went out to get everything. Susanna and Katja weren’t able to sneak out, but the three Davis kids were,and they helped - breaking into various stores, though usually leaving at least some money to pay for what they’dtaken.

They met up outside the Davis house once they’d gotten everything.

“Thanks for helping, guys,” Roxanna said. She smiled at her friends and her boyfriend.

“Not a problem,” Redwood said. He glanced at his older sister, who looked worried.

“Bring them back?” Starchild asked plaintively. “I don’t - I mean - I -”

Astraea had never been that close with her brother’s girlfriend. She’d sometimes thought Starchild was takingadvantage of Ma’or. But this - worry, grief - was real. “We will. I swear it.”

“Thank you.”

They parted - the Davis kids to sleep, as Susanna and Katja already had, and the Dorans to return home to try to fixtheir siblings.

* * *

Their conversation was disturbed by the door opening, though by that point, it wasn’t really much of a conversation.

None of them were really in the right position to see who had opened the door.

The cat, however, didn’t care if anyone was paying attention to him. Hoshi walked right into the middle of the threeanteaters, sniffed at them, and batted at Ma’or with a paw.

“Hoshi!” Ma’or said.

Hoshi meowed at them, slapped Seren on the nose, and curled up for a nap against Vesper.

“He can’t understand us,” Ma’or said sadly.

“We’re not our usual animals anymore,” Seren answered. “But at least he didn’t turn into an anteater too.”

“Actually, neither did Astraea. She touched my back, earlier.”

“So it’s limited to people in animal form,” Seren said. “We’re the only ones who can get stuck this way.”

Ma’or sighed. “At least it won’t happen to our sisters.”

* * *

Roxanna and Astraea stopped in the driveway. “How are we going to sneak back in?”

“I’ve got handholds on the side of the house, but that’ll only get us into our room. The bells are still on the door.”Astraea tapped at the steering wheel. “I’ve got a house key, stole it ages ago, but Dad could be anywhere inside.And we don’t want to get caught.”

“Dad can see us,” Roxanna said slowly.

“Of course he can.”

Roxanna smiled. “PT9?” she called.

He materialized in the backseat. “Yes?”

“Can you go find out where Dad is?”

“Sure.” He headed off into the house, walking through walls like they weren’t there. He returned a few minuteslater. “He’s working on building more robots.

Roxanna turned to Astraea. “He’s roboting.”

“Good. That’s loud enough for him not to hear us.”

They still snuck into the house, taking care to be as quiet as possible.

“Magic time, I guess,” Roxanna said quietly once they’d managed to get into Ma’or’s room.

“Let’s get this set up.”

The sun was close to rising by the time everything was ready. They shooed Hoshi out of the room, since they didn’tthink it would be good for him to get stuck in the middle of some ritual. He growled when they chased him awayfrom the anteaters, but left anyway.

“All three at once?” Roxanna asked.

“It’ll be quickly that way,” Astraea answered.

“True.”

As the final step of the setup, they moved the three anteaters into the middle of the room, still all together. Thenthey started performing the ritual, a cobbled together combination of a few rituals that they’d found in their search.

The ritual to reverse the spell took less time than they would have thought, but sometimes magic worked that way.

Ten minutes after sunrise, a light flashed, and then, suddenly, the anteaters were gone.

Seren squeezed Astraea tight. “You guys rock!”

“Get off of me,” Astraea moaned.

Seren kissed her on the cheek before letting her go. “You still rock.”

Ma’or grabbed Roxanna’s hands. “How long have we been stuck as anteaters?”

“Only overnight.”

“Oh, thank Plumbbob. I was worried it was much longer.”

“Nope, not that long. We’ve even managed to hide it from the parents.”

“Great.”

Astraea looked over at them. “Your girlfriend knows, though.”

“What?”

“We needed research help. I don’t do research, and neither does Roxanna.”

“So we called everyone for help,” Roxanna said. “Don’t worry, thought. I think Starchild and Redwood will be veryhappy to see you.”

At that point, Astraea walked up to the stranger, who was dressed in very odd - and old-fashioned - clothing. “Sowho are you?”

“My name is Vesper Veneficus.” And once more, Vesper told his story.

“So…what are you going to do now?” Roxanna asked.

“I think I’ll wander.”

Ma’or and Roxanna exchanged a glance. “Do you have any money?” Ma’or asked.

Vesper took a small purse out of his pocket. “I have some.” He showed them the various coins that were in thepurse - gold, silver, copper, all really those materials.

Three of the kids’ eyes grew wide.

Astraea, however, looked at the coins with a calculating eye. “You can probably get a ton of cash for those. Oldcoins go for a lot.”

“Oh good! I shall sell these, then head out into the world and have adventures!”

The quads exchanged glances. This guy was a bit of a doofus, though he was generally nice. Probably how thewitches had gotten angry at him in the first pace, actually.

Roxanna looked around. “Hey, guys, it’s dawn. We’re all supposed to be getting ready for school. And, I mean, thebells on our door…”

Astraea shrugged. “We could leave the house and climb in the window.”

“I’d really rather not.”

“Get one of your ghosts to check if anyone’s in the hallway. The bells are on the outside of the door - you could stopthem from ringing when you enter,” Ma’or suggested.

“Good idea.”

Roxanna did as Ma’or suggested, sending PT9 to check on the parents.

He returned, blushing. “Your father is making breakfast. Your mothers are…busy.”

“Oh, ew!” Roxanna said. She grimaced as she repeated his words. Her siblings echoed her expression.

Then Seren shrugged in a very practical manner. “It’ll be easy to get past them, at least.”

“What about Vesper?” Ma’or asked. “And the missing anteater?”

“Tell the ‘rents that you scratched up the anteater while you were having alone time as a cat,” Seren suggested.

“And Vesper can use my window path,” Astraea said.

“That will be exciting!”

“Well,” Ma’or said, shaking Vesper’s hand. “It was nice to meet you.”

“And, uh, you might want to avoid witches in the future,” Roxanna said. “They can be pretty, um, crazy.”

“I do believe that sounds like a good plan. Thank you all, very much.”

Roxanna, Astraea, and Vesper returned to their room, while Seren returned to hers. The girls watched Vesper leaveby the window.

“Well,” Roxanna said, “that was an interesting experience.”

Astraea looked up from her phone, where she was busy texting all of their friends to let them know that everythinghad been solved and that Seren and Ma’or were human again. She opened her mouth to say something.

“Breakfast!” The yell came from downstairs.

Roxanna’s eyes widened. “We’ve got to get ready for school!” She rushed off to take a quick shower and get in heruniform.

Astraea finished her text, changed clothing, and strolled out much more casually, finding Seren coming out of herroom to head downstairs, already dressed for school. “You’re covering for us when we fall asleep during class.”

“What?”

“You do realize we were up all night researching, then performing the spell.”

“Oh! Right! No problem!” Being a stuffed animal was actually strangely relaxing, so Seren and Ma’or werecompletely awake. Roxanna and Astraea, however, were not.

Astraea nodded, then they headed downstairs.

Ma’or came out of his room, dressed and ready for school. He met his mothers coming out of their room. “Did youhave a good night of alone time?” Maddie asked.

He blinked, surprised, then remembered that he’d told his sisters he wanted alone time after school the day before.They’d probably kept using that as a cover story. “It was good, thanks. Heading down for breakfast.”

Stella smiled. “Yes.”

Roxanna came rushing out of the bathroom, finally in her uniform. “Oh, hi, Moms!”

“Good morning, Roxanna. Ready for school?”

“Yup! Super excited for the day!”

Maddie and Stella headed downstairs while Roxanna put her dirty clothes in the laundry. Ma’or waited for her.

“You know,” he said quietly, “you’re a really bad liar. Good thing the moms were too wrapped up in each other tonotice.”

“I know. We’ll just have to make Astraea tell all the lies. She’s good at those.”

“Yup.”

* * *

Breakfast was loud, and busy, and Astraea successfully spun a tale of their adventures that night, making it all seemlike a completely fictional tale.

And then the bus was there, and it was time for school, and they headed outside.

Roxanna groaned. “Do we have to go to school?”

“If you don’t want the parents catching us, yeah,” Astraea said.

“I am so totally falling asleep in class.”

“We’ll cover for you, don’t worry,” Seren said.

“We will?” Ma’or asked.

“Well, we’re the ones who turned into stuffed anteaters and made them stay up all night trying to fix us.”

“Oh. Good point. Yeah, we’ll cover.”

The bus honked, twice.

“Time to go!” Seren yelled happily, then ran for the bus.

Ma’or followed her, smiling.

Roxanna and Astraea exchanged a look, rolling their eyes at their Knowledge-oriented siblings.

Roxanna shrugged. “At least we know we can research when we care about it.”

Astraea grinned. “Not that we usually care.”

“No. Not that we usually care. To school?”

“To school, and sleeping through class!”

And they got on the bus, ready to face the day.

* * *

And now it is outtakes time, because I got a few amusing pics!

Kimberly: “Oh my God, did you hear about Vesper?”

Samantha: “No, what?”

Vesper: “You do realize I’m standing right here, right?”

Roxanna: “What are you looking at?”

“Astraea’s noogying Seren.”

“Again?”

“Yeah.”

“But we just moved on to this lot, so Rose could build us a library!”

(By the way, did you know it’s possible to spend an entire motherlode on bookshelves? No, neither did I.)

Astraea was NOT happy about getting a D+.

Too bad I had to have the parents quit the jobs and the kids skip school when I was doing all the filming at the end ofthe RR…

And finally, creepy elf number one came out to haunt in the hour I was on the zombie lot!

So, everyone, I hope you loved this. I meant for this to be a short thing, maybe a cute little story…and it ratherexploded. Oh well!

1. Gin, for the Magenta Anteater! ‘Tis awesome!

2. Fire and Ori, for extracting the Cordial sisters and giving me their stats. They were quite helpful. :D

3. Whoever first suggested Ma’or turning into a cerulean anteater accidentally, which put the bug into my head untilit never left!

4. The Box. As a whole. Because DUH.