Work Text:
The last light of the sun was disappearing between the trees, and the evening rain shower had just begun. A light sprinkling; not the heavy rains of spring, not the steady and monotonous drizzle of summer. The chill of fall was in the air, and the great trees of the Rainforest District were slowing their growth, needing less and less water each day.
With a heavy "clunk" a gondola lift came to rest at the station, disgorging it's cargo of evening commuters. They hurried into the rainy street, umbrellas coming open with clicks, those without protection from the rain scurrying for shelter, or plodding along unconcernedly as the water dripped from their ears and tails. Three school-aged girls walked together, their voices ringing out in the quiet of the early-evening drizzle.
"You're such a liar Becki, ohmyGAWD!!" This was from the largest of the three, a leopard with a bright yellow umbrella over her shoulder. From her perch on the stem of the umbrella, the little possum asserted that she was NOT a liar, she HAD been hiding in the locker room when the football team came in from practice, and Bobby Lyons DID have a pierced nipple!
"SO hot. Bobby is SO hot. I was up on the top shelf of the supply closet, and I saw EVERYTHING!" Becki squeaked, eyes hooded and a lascivious grin plastered across her muzzle. "He puts a bandage over it during the day so you can't see it, but it's there. Rosa, didn't he ask you to the Winter Mixer last year?"
"Ugh, yes, but he cancelled with me after Savanna Waterston agreed to go with him. He's such a dog."
"Left or right side?" the third girl asked. She was a sheep, wearing a heavy canvas raincoat with a built in hood. Brushing a wet strand of curly black fur out of her eyes, she hurried along beside the leopard, trying to stay underneath the umbrella's protection.
"Left. I bet that he's got one on the left, and Savanna has one on her right tit, the slut!" Becki cackled.
An elderly porcupine shuffling past huffed "How rude!" and Rosa lengthened her stride, ears flattened to the back of her head with embarrassment. She shook the umbrella's handle, warning Becki that if she got them in trouble by being loud and gross then she could find her own way home.
Becki was unperturbed, "You know you love it, Rosie! Besides, if you weren't going to give me a ride, I could just climb onto Julie instead!"
"How's that going to work Becki? We live in completely different trees! Are you going to try to climb across the gap on a vine again?"
"That would have worked if you hadn't stopped me from trying it!" the possum shot back, "Your street is coming up, give me a ride to your house and we'll try it right now!"
Julie rolled her eyes and said "I don't think so. That fall has got to be at least thirty meters. I'm not going to explain to your parents why I'm dropping you off even shorter than you left for school this morning."
"Oh BURN!!!" Rosa howled with laughter, shaking the umbrella again. Becki muttered under her breath about how SOME people were better climbers than others, but didn't bring it up again.
Julie turned at the corner, stopped and waived to her friends. "I'll see you guys next week," she said, and hurried off into the rain.
----
Slamming the door behind her, Julie shrugged out of her dripping raincoat, hanging it on a peg by the door next to the rest. She could hear her family in the apartment, pots and pans clattered as Maman prepared dinner, shouts and muffled thuds from her two younger brothers as they squabbled over a PreyStation game that had gone missing. She could smell a whiff of tobacco; Dad must be home from the office already.
"Julienne, come in here and take over cooking," her mother called. "I need to finish ze costumes for Ovide and Anatole."
Julie groaned and slowly walked in to the kitchen, where a pan of ratatouille was half assembled. Her mother slipped past her as she entered the small room, brushing a brief kiss on the top of her head. "School good, ma Cherie?"
"Fine. Did you get the wool paint I needed for tonight?" She turned to the sink, started to slice zucchini and eggplant, scooped up the chunks of veggies and loaded them into the cooking pan.
"Oui, is in my market bag. Ovide! Anatole! Stop zis fighting at once!" Julie started the heat under the pan, and then rummaged through her mother's big shopping tote until she found it. Federico's Best Fur Dye, Titanium White. She pocketed the tube and went back to stirring the vegetables as they sautéed. Dinner with the family, then she would take her little brothers trick-or-treating through the neighborhood. Drop them back off at home, and she would have at least an hour until her curfew at 10:00. Plenty of time...
She adjusted the heat on the stove, heard the kitchen time buzz, and took the loaf of bread out of the oven. Her mother reappeared, a small red costume in hand. She held it up to display her handiwork to Julie, "What you think? Not bad, c'est vrai?" It was a miniature Urban Brawl jersey, complete with a plastic spiked shoulder pad and a buckled chest plate of quilted fabric.
Julie fingered the costume, grinning despite herself. "It's nice Maman, where did you get the shoulder pad?"
"Monsieur Franklin at ze corner store, he has ze new AutoFabrique. I ask him to make it for me. 'Mademoiselle Lacaune, it is ze honor to do so!' he says!" Maman smiled, then took the bread to slice and wrap it in a cloth for the table. "Such a kind man, and he has ze son, you know Enrique from school?"
"Ugh, Maman, please don't tell me you promised a date with me in exchange?" Julie snorted, imagining Ricky Franklin trying to take her out to the Simsense theater. Trying to get her in the dark so that he could get his grubby paws under her blouse, more like...
"Pourquoi pas? He is handsome, his papa has ze shop, you might like him!" Maman smiled at her, Julie rolled her eyes and took the ratatouille off the stovetop, ladling it into a white ceramic bowl.
"I think this is ready, I'll get the heathens rounded up if you want to tell Dad?"
----
Dinner over and the dishes done, Julie hurried to her room to shift into her Halloween costume. She had spent the last three weeks working on it, and earned a grounding for using Maman's best stock pot to boil the dye solution, but at last it was complete!
On her feet, a pair of dancer's satin clogs, dyed black. Over her limbs and torso, an elastic dancer's one-piece, dyed black. On front and back sides she had stitched a white fabric applique in the shape of a cartoon skeleton. Small EL wires in the fabric would glow as a current passed through them, the different sections joined together with a special electrically conductive thread she had found on Zoogle. She switched on the battery power pack, and tucked it into a pocket sewn in the waistband.
Taking the tube of wool paint, she squeezed out a generous dollop into a mixing bowl, then adding the contents of a second tube borrowed from her high school's chemistry lab. She mixed thoroughly, and began to paint the compound into a skeletal hand on the backs of her hooves, working carefully to match the pattern from left to right as she worked with her offhand. That done, she stepped closer to the makeup table in the corner, and painted her face with the visage of an ovine skull
Finally, careful not to smear the drying dye on her arms, she pulled on a diaphanous black shawl, gathered together at her shoulders and flowing down to a tattered hemline near the ground. As she moved, it fluttered and swayed, giving her a spectral appearance as the skeleton glowed though it. She shut off the room's lights and posed before the mirror, the doctored wool dye glowing to complete the illusion of a ghostly skeleton, dressed in a flowing burial shroud.
Julie laughed to herself in pure joy at the sight of it, all that work had paid off, and her costume was AMAZING. She switched the lights back on and headed to the apartment's living room to show it off. Maman and Dad were in their easy chairs, watching the ZNN news broadcast. Maman saw her first, and hopped up off the chair in mock terror.
"Pierre! Ze house is haunted! Fetch Father Maximus at once!" She clutched at the rosary around her neck, flicking Julie with its long tassels. "Shoo! Quelle Diabolique! Oh Pierre I am overcome!" With this, she collapsed backwards into her seat, one arm thrown up and over her face as she 'fainted' dead away.
Her father examined her, reached for his briar pipe where it lay in its ashtray, and took a contemplative puff. He took the stem from between his teeth and said "Nice work, punkin."
"That's IT?!? 'Nice work'? Come onnn, Dad, I spent three weeks on this!" Julie stomped in frustration, throwing up her hands in frustration, the veil billowing outwards in their wake.
"I'm sure your friends will love it, dear. Be home by 10:00, if you please." He put his pipe down and reached for the remote control
Julie turned on her heel and marched out, shouting "Ollie! Andy! We're leaving!" Her two brothers came running out of their room, costumes on and trick-or-treating bags at the ready. Andy was in his little Urban Brawl uniform, Ollie right behind him was dressed in Andy's costume from last year, a ZFD firefighter's turnout uniform, complete with a foam rubber fire axe.
They both looked her up and down before starting to giggle. "Julie's a witch! Julie's a witch!" Ollie whacked at her shin with the fire axe, shouting "Slay her!" He had been watching History of the Zoosades on trideo, apparently.
With an exasperated sign, Julie grabbed them both by the wool at the back of their necks, and dragged them out into the coatroom, with a shout over her shoulder of "Be back in a little while, probably with both of them!"
----
Two hours later, two sugar-addled lambs were dropped off again at home with their plunder. Julie closed the front door behind her as she stepped out into the night, signing in relief as their excited shouts faded into the distance. She checked her commlink; it was just past 8:30. She had a few new messages from Becki, asking where she was, if she wasn't at Bobby Lyons's party? She smiled, sending a quick reply that she was grounded for something that Andy had done, can you frakking believe it? SO unfair!
Tucking her phone away in the hidden pocket of her leotard, she started to climb the winding walkway as it spiraled upwards and away from her apartment block. As she climbed higher and higher, the noise of the streets below receded, and the houses grew larger and more ornate. The safety lights were fewer in number, since most arboreal dwellers enjoyed the darkness, but she had been walking this path for years, and soon she was in front of her destination.
22A Monteverde Road was an imposing townhouse, three stories from the level of the walkway. It was a common building style near the ends of the spiraled walkways, real estate was expensive but you could build upwards with little restriction. She crossed the threshold of the gate, and stood below the third window, looking for a pebble to toss upwards.
She didn't sense the approaching figure until it had wrapped its arms around her mid-section and squeezed tight. A deep voice whispered "BOOO!" in her ear! Julie bleated in fear and struggled free of her assailant, who was bent over, hands on knees, gasping in laughter.
"Oh Julie, I'm sorry, but you should have seen your FACE! Bwahaha!!" The laughing prankster was a young okapi girl, dressed in a bottle green Victaurian Era gown; lace and ribbons covered the front, while the hem ran down to her feet, hiding them from view.
"Beverly! How could you do that to me?!? After I survived being burned as a heretic this evening, I come up here to see you and this is the thanks I get?"
"I'm sorry Julie, please forgive me?" Beverly put on her best 'I am being sincere' face, making big eyes at Julie until she started to giggle.
"Okay, I'm going to get you back for that one, just so we're clear on that." Julie relaxed, and did a quick pirouette, showing off her costume to her friend. "What do you think?"
"Incredible. How long did it take you to do this?" Beverly's tugged gently at the thin shawl, got close and studied the faintly glowing skeleton beneath it. She leant forward and examined the skull face paint, which still had a little residual glow left over.
"About three weeks, all together. Maman had a screaming fit when I used her best copper-bottomed pots as dye vats." Julie into her pocket and produced a pouch of hard candies, handing it over to Beverly with an apologetic "Sorry it's not chocolate, but that would have melted long ago."
"It's all the same to me, thank you for bringing me some goodies anyways!" Beverly tore open one corner of the bag and immediately started to graze. "You have no idea how boring it can be to be stuck in the same house, day in and day out. So what do you want to do?"
"Wellllll..." Julie drew the word out, teasing her friend, "I was thinking, it's Halloween tonight, we're all alone in the house, we could tell some scary stories?" Beverly stopped snacking, staring at Julie in shock.
"You mean ghost stories? You KNOW how I hate those." She looked at Julie with a hurt expression.
"You said the G-Word, not me. I said scary stories; there are plenty of psycho mammals out there to make up stories without getting into G-Word territory." Julie reassured her friend. Damn, she HAD meant ghost stories; those were the best kind, who cared about some psycho Pred killer on the loose?
Beverly was rapidly coming around again, she gestured to Julie and they walked up to the massive ebony door. Beverly reached out and turned the ornate silver handle, saying the same thing that she always did; "Julienne, in the name of my Master, welcome to my abode."
----
They were curled up in a pair of armchairs, before them in the hearth a fire slowly crackled, the flames dimly lighting the antique-filled second floor study. Red-orange light reflected from the gilt-lettered spines of books, from the crystals of a heavy iron chandelier, from a glass case containing a pair of Hipponese dueling swords.
"And then, the car's commlink comes back on, and it's another announcement from the police, saying that the Hook-Handed-Hyena escaped from Cliffside Asylum that night. And then they say that if any mammal sees a hyena with a hook in place of her right paw, they should immediately call for help."
Beverly shivered, curling up tighter in the armchair, peering out at Julie from behind her knees. "Then what happened?" She asked in a trembling voice.
Julie shifted her position in the chair, leaning backwards and letting the phosphorescent skull glow out from its shadowy recesses. She took her time replying, letting the atmosphere build.
"Then the girlfriend says 'I don't care if you do break up with me, I want to go home!' The boyfriend is mad, cause, you know, he wants to do it, so he fires up the car and tears out of the parking spot on full manual control, no CityLink or anything! He drives to her apartment and goes around to let her out of the car, and then he SHRIEKS!!!!" Julie fills in the volume of the shriek appropriately, watches with satisfaction as Beverly convulses in fright. Gotcha, bitch!
"The girlfriend can't imagine what caused him to scream like that, so she gets out of the car. And there, on her door handle, there's a steel HOOK that's been ripped out of some mammal's arm! She was right there outside the car, and they didn't see her the whole time!"
"Julie, that was awful, did that actually happen?" Beverly looked miserable, curled up on herself in mortal dread. Julie took pity on her, and said "No, I heard the story at Camp Whispering Rock, I don't think it actually happened. Pretty scary though, you have to admit it! Ok, so I just told one now it's your turn."
Beverly took a deep breath, and started telling her story. "Ok, so there was a gentleman moose, and he was riding on a train to visit his old aunt and uncle. He gets off the train at a deserted station, and he sees a pig working in a signal-box."
"What's a signal-box?" Julie asked, "Is it someplace where they have Matrix computers for the railway?"
Beverly thought for a moment, before offering "I think it was from before they had the Matrix or computers. The pig just stood in the box and signaled to the trains as they passed. This is an old story; I don't really remember where I heard it."
Julie thinks for a second, remembering her Zootopian History classes from a year before. "Ok, yeah I remember how they used to just have telegrams or whatever. No computers, no commlinks, if you wanted to send a message you had to use Boarse code."
"I know Boarse code," Beverly interjected. "I learned it one summer; I thought it might be useful. Guess it didn't turn out to be. Anyways, so the moose goes and tries to talk to the pig, and the pig just--"
Whatever the pig had done was left to the imagination; both girls froze as the sound of breaking glass echoed through the dark house. Julie stared at Beverly, mouthed the words 'What Was That?' Beverly shook her head, mouthing 'I Don’t Know' back.
Silence, for half a minute, and then more glass shattered. Julie leaned forward in her chair, and grabbed the fireplace poker from where it rested. She thought that she could hear voices from downstairs, a squeaky high-pitched one asking a question, and a deep rumbling one responding. Could someone have broken in to Beverly's home?
Beverly had heard them too, and a sudden change in attitude came over her. Her fear vanished; she sat up straight in her chair, and then rose to her feet, brushing the front of her dress as if to dislodge any stray hairs.
"Just a minute, dear, I need to take care of this intrusion." Beverly said, turning and marching swiftly towards the door, and the main staircase beyond it. Julie followed after her, carrying the poker with one hoof while trying to disconnect the battery to the glowing skeleton with the other.
----
As Julie followed Beverly down the staircase, her furtive crouch barely keeping up with the okapi girl's long-legged stride, she could hear the sounds of a hurried ransacking. Drawers slid rapidly open and shut, metal objects tinkled as they were scooped up and dropped into pockets, thuds and quiet curses as furniture was bumped into. She could feel the chill of the night air, coming in through whatever window that must have been broken earlier
It was all well and good for Beverly to go charging in; Julie found a space to hide behind the bannister and watched. She could even see Beverly's reflection in the big mirror across the room; this was going to be fun!
The three burglars were so absorbed in their tasks that they entirely failed to notice Beverly standing in the doorway to the main parlor, until she began to shout at them. "What, may I ask, are you doing in this house? Have you been invited here?"
All three jumped and spun to face her, the little stoat's tail fluffing up into an angry bottle-brush, the goat that carried the garbage bag of loot dropping it and his flashlight at the same time. The big tiger, though, he didn't panic or drop his handful of loot. His eyes narrowed, and his tail started to switch back and forth, as he examined Beverly where she stood.
"Ohhh," he purred, "it looks like someone lives here after all. Where are your parents, little girl?"
"Oh gawd, Tony, you said that no one was gonna be here!" The goat was babbling, scrabbling on his hands and knees to retrieve the flashlight from under an ottoman, where it had rolled after being dropped. "You said this was gonna be an easy score, what if she called Lone Star?!?"
"Lone Star will be the least of your problems," Beverly snarled, "if you don't put everything down, and leave right now!" Her fists were balled at her sides, but they were steady as rock.
"Lone Star isn't coming here tonight," Tony smiled, "since we cut the telecom cables. And I have this little toy, just in case..." He reached into a coat pocket with one paw, and produced a black box with a series of plastic antennas at one end. Julie recognized it as a wireless signal jammer; she had seen one at the school when they had to take the GNU tests for college admission.
"Yeah kid, you fucked up now, you don't know who you're messing with!" The stoat had begun to hop from side to side, doing his war dance as he worked himself into a fury. "Stupid grazer, you fucked up, now you're gonna pay for messing with us, no one fucks with the Pack Street Rabid Crew!"
"Okay, I think that I've heard enough." Beverly's voice was icy, as she stared them down. "If you won't leave willingly, I'll have to force you out."
Tony the tiger stepped forward into a fighting crouch, his claws unsheathed and his fangs bare. "Try it." he whispered, "I'd like to see that."
Beverly reached out with her right hoof, and snapped her fingers in the tiger's face. The temperature in the room plummeted, going from the pleasant chill of Rainforest District evenings to the icy depths of a Tundra Town blizzard. Little puffs of frost began to appear before all the mammal's noses, and the stoat began to shiver with the cold, rather than from his Nova-Coke driven frenzy. An eerie light filled the room, as Beverly's dress began to ripple and glow, the fine lacework and pleats dissolving and reshaping themselves into a simple Keikogi. Tiny sparks of deep blue flashed from the pits of her eyes, and a hazy aura began to surround her.
"T-t-ony, h-h-ow's she doing t-t-his? W-w-hat's g-g-oing on, man-n-n?" the goat stammered, pulling his coat around his body and shivering with the cold.
"Just our luck the kid's a mage. Still, there's three of us, and only one of her, should be easy to stop her." Tony growled; he gathered himself for an instant, and then leapt for her, claws scything towards her unprotected neck.
Beverly waited until the last instant before throwing her left arm out, her small fist impacting his huge palm and parrying the killing blow. She slipped inside his guard and kicked one of his legs aside, making him stumble and slam headlong into the door frame, the impact rattling pictures on the walls and knocking over the umbrella stand.
With a screech of rage, the stoat raced forward, bounding from the floor to a low table, and then launching himself at Beverly's face. Whipping up her right arm, she pointed and shrieked, a bolt of aquamarine energy flying from her hoof and impacting the flying mammal mid-leap. He flew backwards from the spell's impact, hair standing on end, before crashing into a glass fronted cabinet and breaking his flight against a heavy decanter of brandy.
The goat by this time had managed to produce a nickel-plated revolver from the back of his blue jeans. He fired at her point blank, screaming "Stay away from me! Stay away!" Across the hallway and behind the heavy oak banister, Julie ducked and covered her head as the bullets flew. It had been fun to watch Beverly slap the robbers around before, but this was a bit much.
Beverly grinned, as the hammer clicked on an empty cylinder. She glided across the floor towards the panicked goat, and slipped both hooves over the gun, resisting his attempts to snatch it away. Nothing happened for a second, then the goat began to scream as a white layer of frost broke out across the surface of the pistol, tracing up and over his own hooves, leaving them trapped under a layer of solid ice. He broke free of her grip, and bolted for the window, leaping through the jagged opening and disappearing into the night.
She had just reached through the broken glass of the cabinet to where the unconscious stoat lay, when a two-meter shadow materialized behind her. She whirled just in time to catch the tiger's fearsome blow directly on her temple. The impact tore her head from her neck; it flew through the air and landed with a splash on a writing desk across the room. Her body stood ramrod straight, the aura surrounding it going wild with a blue-green fire.
Tony had paused to admire his handiwork, when a gurgling laughter begin from where the head had landed, turning his blood to ice water. Slowly turning his head, he saw that the freaky prey bitch was STARING at him! She grinned up at him, and croaked "Touche, mon ami. Best two out of three?" His terror was doubled when the headless body turned from where it stood, marched smartly to the writing desk, and picked up the head. It fumbled with it, trying and finally succeeding to put it back into place. With a wet popping sound, the severed flesh knit back together, and the luminescence surrounding the body calmed to its previous soft glow.
Beverly flexed her shoulders, a staccato series of cracking as she worked the joints loose. She blew a raspberry at Tony before launching herself at him, raining punches down on him as she descended. He parried, flailing to defend himself on pure reflex, only to feel a searing pain in his foot as she came down hard on his instep. He tried to backpedal, but nearly lost his balance when his left foot wouldn't move from its place. Glancing downwards, he saw to his horror that it was frozen solid, encased in ice and stuck fast to the rug.
A flash of pale blue light on his right side was his only warning as Beverly spun under his arm, another quick stamp on his right foot trapping it in ice as well, freezing him in place before the big observation window. Beverly skidded to a stop before him, the sparks in her eyes now grown to chaotic pools of blue fire. She puffed in exertion, a savage grin plastered across her long muzzle.
"Well Tony, this has been fun, I must say. Thanks for dropping in and wrecking up the place, now let me give you a hand dropping out again." She closed her eyes, began to move her hands in fluid spherical passes around a point at chest height. Rapidly, a sphere of frozen mana coalesced and began to grow, layers of frost and icy energy growing until it was the size of a medicine ball. Beverly's eyes snapped open, the entire sclera now burning with a cold light. She shouted "CATCH!", then hurled the frozen bomb at the tiger. It accelerated as it flew, catching him in the chest and ripping his feet free of the rug, blowing him out the picture window. The last that Julie could see of him as he hurtled outwards into the night was one striped arm vanishing below the level of the walkway, falling down the ninety meters to the quiet streets below.
----
Julie sat on the porch steps, listening to Beverly give instructions to the small army of housekeeping mice that had come up from their homes in the wainscoting. She was detailing what she needed to be done tonight, and what could wait until the morning, giving instructions for the hiring of workmen to come in and repair what was beyond their capacity. The tasks assigned, Beverly came out and joined her, leaning on the railing next to where Julie sat. Her garments had morphed into the Victaurian gown again, her appearance dapper and spotless once more.
"I'm glad that you weren't hit by any of those bullets. I would have tried to stop them if I had thought you were likely to be hit." Beverly said, in a conversational tone. Julie shook her head, thinking back to the fight in the parlor. Had she really sat there and watched the whole thing? Watched at least one mammal be thrown to his death from the top of the forest canopy, hidden behind a piece of wood while a crazed gunman emptied his gun in her direction? Had she really volunteered to carry the still unconscious stoat off the property, placing him under a shrub in the city easement, to awaken in a few hours or slowly expire from a fractured skull?
"Beverly..." She faltered, not sure how to proceed with what she had to say. "You do realize that you killed that guy, right? Might have killed two, probably crippled that goat for life." Julie shivered, thinking about the damage that must have caused to his hands.
"Hey, it's not my fault." Beverly shrugged, "The geas clearly states that any and all measures are acceptable to remove those who trespass on the Master's domain. You heard me ask if they had an invitation, you saw that they didn't offer any."
"And the fact that your Master disappeared over two hundred years ago, on an expedition to discover the lost city of Lemur-ia, don't you think that might have something to do with why no one is ever invited?"
"Julie, I know that's the case, but my hands are tied." Beverly was reproachful, staring at her friend with a hurt expression. "It's a geas. Until its terms are fulfilled, I'm stuck here. This was supposed to be a temporary guardianship, but things didn't work out the way anyone would have wanted." She sighed, looking out towards the lights of the city center, "If I get a little stir-crazy being trapped in this house, can you really blame me?"
Julie thought about what it must be like, being summoned by a mage to an alien world, bound to his service, unable to go home and see her Maman and Dad again. Even not being able to see Ovide and Anatole would be depressing, after a while. She smiled to think of it, what it would take for her to miss the sight of those two.
Julie stood, and then turned to face Beverly. "Listen, I've got curfew in a little while, I've got to go. I've also got to do something for that poor stoat, take him down to the street level and call ZPD or something."
She smiled at her strange friend, and asked the same thing that she always asked. It was the very phrase that she had used ten years ago, when she had wandered up to the long abandoned house and saw the tall okapi girl in the pretty green dress sitting on the porch.
"May I come in and talk with you?"
Beverly smiled back at her, thinking of how lucky she had been, to finally have someone who would come and treat her as a friend, rather than as a powerful and dangerous Water Spirit.
"Yes Julienne," she replied, "in the name of my Master, please come in and talk to me."