"Seriously?" Soneya asked.

Her voice woke me up from the warm comfy place I'd been, but I was way too cosy to open my eyes. I didn't need to look to know it was still dark out, so I just snuggled up a little tighter against the big soft wonderfully warm object next to me. One of my arms was wrapped around what had to be a heated body-pillow, and so was one of my legs.

"Mm-hmm," Lia mumbled somewhere nearby.

Then I felt her arm against mine, and I realized she was cuddled up tight on the other side of the source of our great warmth.

"Way too comfy to move," I added.

The wolfgirl sighed, "Well you're going to have to. Both of you. I need to pee. And it's time to get up anyways. We wanted an early start remember? So take this as your five AM wake-up call."

The source of warmth started to shift and move, then sat up and pulled free of my grasp. It was enough that I woke up the rest of the way, then blushed as I realized just how tightly I'd been cuddling against our pack leader.

Soneya was blushing too as she climbed out of bed. She muttered to herself, "Why do you two insist on being practically on top of me at night anyways?"

"It's because you're so hot," Lia replied as she shifted into the space Soneya left. Then my little sister pulled me into a cuddle instead, which made my cheeks brighter.

I had nothing on the wolfgirl though, after Lia's comment it looked like her cheeks were about to spontaneously combust. I decided to put her out of her misery before she got too embarrassed to function.

"She means you're warm," I explained. "I assume it's because of your fire magic, but you're like a little space heater or something Alpine. That's why we both want to cuddle with you at night."

Then again, I couldn't help adding "Mind you, the fact that you're absolutely gorgeous doesn't hurt either."

Our wolfgirl let out an exasperated sigh and hurried into the washroom. I was pretty sure I spotted a smile on her face though, along with the blush.

Soneya was in there for a little while, and by the time she emerged she was fully dressed again. Meanwhile Lia and I hadn't moved, the two of us were still cuddling in our warm comfy bed.

"Ok you two," our leader stated. "You can spend another half hour in bed, or you can have breakfast. Time to choose, because I'm heading down to the hotel restaurant."

"Food!" Lia exclaimed as her ears perked up and her tail started wagging.

Just like that she let go of me and scrambled out of bed, then started digging through the clothes we bought yesterday. The wolfgirl blushed and turned around when our small sister pulled off her nightshirt and started dressing in front of us both.

I moved a lot more slowly, but I dragged myself out of the warm soft embrace of bed and started getting dressed too. Lia and I took turns in the washroom again, then when we were ready the three of us set out to get breakfast.

The hotel didn't do a breakfast buffet and the meal wasn't free, but they did have a good selection on their breakfast menu. After a few seconds looking at the menu I made my choice.

I was about to help Lia with her menu when she looked up from it and asked, "What's a omelet? What's a pancake? What's a toast?"

Soneya and I exchanged a surprised look, then I quietly asked our small sister "You can read? How'd that happen?"

She shrugged, "I don't know? The menu at the dinner place was just squiggles and lines but this menu is words. Except I don't know what most of the words mean."

"More magic probably," our wolfgirl pointed out just as quietly. "Presumably she learned to read the same way she learned to speak English?"

That made as much sense as anything else over the past few days, so I pushed it aside with all the other unanswerable questions and gave Lia some pointers on what the different options meant.

When the waitress came round me and Soneya both ordered coffee while Lia got juice. Alpine ordered the big breakfast with eggs, bacon, ham, toast, and home-fries. I got some french toast with a side of bacon, and Lia ordered a cheese and bacon omelet with a side of home-fries.

Our small sister was ready to attempt cutlery this time too, although from the look of it she hadn't been granted any magical mastery of that. Not yet at least. Still, she wasn't that bad and I thought it was pretty cute the way she seemed determined to figure it out for herself. On the other hand the three of us attracted plenty of stares again, and there were a few whispered comments about our animal 'costumes' along with Lia's rather unique take on how to use a knife and fork.

The three of us ignored the stares and whispers though, and just enjoyed our breakfast. The food was good, and there was plenty of it. In fact Soneya was the only one of us who finished her meal. She also insisted on taking care of the bill, despite my offer to split it with her.

After that it was back up to the hotel room, where we packed up all our old and new clothes and everything else. We also made a point of using the facilities again, then finally headed back down to the lobby to check out. That all went fine, and the three of us emerged from the hotel into the cold dark early morning air.

The strange aurora was still visible to the east, but beyond that some pre-dawn light was just starting to tease the horizon as the three of us loaded up Soneya's jeep. Lia got in the back seat again, while the wolfgirl slipped in behind the wheel and I took the passenger seat.

From the hotel we made one short trip to a gas station, then with the tank filled up we finally got under way at about half past six in the morning.

"It looks like we've got eleven and a half hours of driving ahead of us," I said after starting up my phone's GPS app. "Not counting stops along the way."

Soneya glanced at the screen then suggested, "We'll stop and stretch our legs when we need to, or when we need gas. Montreal looks about half-way, we could stop there for lunch or something? And maybe there, or a little further along, you and I can trade off?"

"I might be good for the whole drive, but I don't know Toronto and you do. So it's probably best if you're behind the wheel for the last leg of the trip," she added.

I nodded, "Sure, that works for me."

"Me too!" Lia added, although I was positive she had very little idea what we were talking about.

At first we were all fairly quiet, and Soneya was mainly focused on driving along the dark road. The voice from my GPS app broke the silence now and then, but that was about it. Then as the sun started to rise behind us Lia finally spoke up with the inevitable question.

"How long until we get there?" she asked.

The wolfgirl and I exchanged a look, and just like that I suddenly knew how my parents must have felt on every family vacation we ever took.

I grimaced and silently apologized to my folks in my head as I replied, "It's going to be a long time Lia. We're going to be in the car all day."

"We've got almost another eleven hours to go," Soneya added, "And that's just driving. Add in time for stops and for lunch, we probably won't get there till around eight o'clock tonight."

I glanced back at our small sister and elaborated, "Sorry Lia. All that means we'll be in the car all day today. We won't get to my place till after it's dark again."

"Oh," Lia pouted. And the next thing she said was just as inevitable, "I'm bored."

"It's going to be a long drive," Soneya sighed. She had a faint smile on her face though, so I knew she wasn't upset. Not yet at least.

A few minutes later the wolfgirl spoke up again with a change of subject, "So thinking about the news, the mountains, the magic, and the water? If we're right that the changed water is the source of magic, and if we're right that the changed water can move upstream, it's only a matter of time before almost all the water in North America is affected. And presumably the same thing is happening on all the other continents as well."

She continued, "From the Gaspe peninsula it gets into the St. Lawrence River, and upstream from there is the whole Great Lakes basin right? Then in the States the one in the Land Between The Lakes is going to reach the Mississippi, which covers most of the mid-west, the south and maybe some of the eastern United States."

"And finally the one near Sedona's not far from the Colorado River," she stated. "That's the lifeblood for most of the western states."

I nodded, "And the one near Banff is probably going to impact the rest of Canada east of the Rockies, and north up into the arctic."

Soneya agreed, "So assuming we're right that the changed water is magic and it's going to propagate throughout North America... The real questions are, is everyone going to grow fuzzy ears and tails? And is everyone going to get some kind of magic?"

"No," Lia stated from the back seat. She sounded very sure of herself too.

I twisted in my seat to look back at her and asked, "What makes you so sure?"

She shook her head, "I don't know how I know, but I do. The magic and the changes are not for everyone."

"Great," Soneya sighed, with a tone that made it clear this was not great at all.

"Why, what's wrong?" I asked her. "Isn't it a good thing that the whole world isn't about to get their hands on magic?"

She grimaced as she explained, "Right now we stand out. People will think we're weird, that we're in costumes or something. Once they start to figure out the ears and tails are real we'll attract a lot more attention. If this started happening to everyone, it takes attention away from us. But if it's just us, or just a select few, then the minute someone reveals they have magic all of us are targets. Anyone with fuzzy ears and a tail is going to be suspected of magic. Suddenly it's them against us? And they win. They have numbers, they have the government, military, police, everything."

We were both quiet for a minute or two as her words sank in. Part of me knew she was right. We stood out, everyone who'd seen us in Amqui would remember us. If the news said to report people with animal features it wouldn't take long before someone turned us in.

Except I couldn't believe something like that was in store for us. Not after everything we'd gone through, not after how hard we'd struggled to survive and escape the park. We didn't survive the earthquake and the hike and almost getting shot just to have the whole world turn on us after we got back home and thought we were safe.

"No," I finally stated. "Whoever or whatever's behind all this, they didn't do this just to set us up then let us fall. They won't abandon us."

Soneya gave me a funny look, "What makes you think there's anyone behind this?"

I explained, "None of those mountains occurred in populated areas. Every last one of them appeared in big parks, undeveloped wilderness, or in the middle of nowhere. That can't be random chance. And the distribution around the world seems like it was planned. Just the distribution in North America seems too deliberate. With four mountains they've covered nearly all of Canada and the USA and parts of Mexico."

"So who do you think is behind this then?" the wolfgirl asked. "Who could possibly create mountains and earthquakes simultaneously all over the world?"

"And don't say 'aliens' or I'm stopping the car," she added with a bit of a grin.

I sighed, "No idea. Your guess is as good as mine? I don't believe in 'god', or at least not that it's some bearded white guy sitting on clouds. But maybe there's some divine force out there after all? And considering the way technology didn't work in the area around the mountain, I'd almost say it's probably something like Mother Nature, or maybe Gaia -"

Me and Soneya exchanged a startled look, while Lia asked from the back seat "Did you feel that? What was that?"

"You both felt it too?" I asked quietly.

It was like a little jolt had passed through my body the moment I said the name Gaia. It wasn't painful, it wasn't like being shocked or anything like that. More like a jolt of adrenaline, like up until that moment I'd been half asleep but now I was wide awake. Except it was like I'd been half asleep my whole entire life, and now I was fully awake for the first time ever. And with that feeling of being awake, I found myself growing more conscious and aware of things I'd never really noticed before.

Like the lingering scent of bacon grease on Lia's hands, or the sweet aroma of maple syrup from where a single drop landed on my pants this morning. Both of those scents were weak in comparison to the almost overwhelming stench of car and truck exhaust, yet that funk couldn't drown out the smell of the autumn leaves passing by outside the car, or even the distant scent of water, marine oil, fish, and seaweed wafting down from the St. Lawrence.

And all that was just what I got from my nose. There was just as much information coming in through my ears, which were twitching this way and that. I could hear the wind passing by outside the car, especially where it swirled around the Jeep's distinctive grille and where it spun in vortexes behind the vehicle. Then there was the roar of rubber on asphalt coming up from below us. And a persistent faint squeak from the rear passenger-side wheel, that Soneya should probably have looked at soon.

I was just as aware of my sense of touch, I could feel the little bumps and occasional cracks in the highway below us as the tires passed over them and those minute vibrations came up through the springs and shock absorbers, then the car's frame, and finally through my seat.

My sense of taste was probably enhanced too, but until I ate or drank something I was more aware of it as a byproduct to smell, like I would almost taste the same things I could smell.

And finally my vision was different, but the change was more subtle. It wasn't so much that I could see further, but everything seemed more precise. Colours were more vibrant, details were sharper, and I was more aware of everything I could see. One thing I was sure of, I could judge speeds and distances much better than before.

None of my senses were overwhelming, except for the way it was all so new. I was able to keep up with the increased flow of information, while at the same time I found myself marvelling at the rich new world of details I was suddenly aware of.

All three of us were silent for the next several minutes, and to her credit Soneya never once took her eyes off the road even as she was going through the same sort of awakening that I was. And in the end it was Alpine who finally spoke up.

When she did, her words reflected the sort of thing I'd been thinking to myself, "I feel like I've been asleep my whole life. And I've only just woken up now, for the very first time."

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