Destiny

"You see what?"

"Me, Paula." Ness's eyes darted back to the painting. "My face, my eyes... hey, I forgot to put my baseball cap on today," he noticed, smoothing down a few rogue hairs. "But I... don't understand..."

"You see what?" Belinda was standing behind them now, and she echoed Paula's words. "You... and you..." She looked from boy to girl slowly, bewildered. "But there aren't any faces in the painting. The space in the middle is blank, milky white..."

"To you," Paula started, turning to face Belinda, "it looks that way. But when we look into the center, we see... oh, there's something very wrong, isn't there?" She was looking at Ness now, dread welling up in her eyes.

"Are you sure you're both... feeling all right? I mean..." Belinda surveyed their faces carefully; their fear looked honest, their panic sincere. Paula's lip was trembling, and Ness's eyes were filled with a blank stare, deep in thought, somewhere else entirely. She saw Paula reach up to touch a chain she wore around her neck, fingering the charm that dangled from it. Squinting, she realized it was a silver key, and that the boy wore one as well.

"Oh," Belinda gasped, focusing on their faces again, "oh, aren't you two those kids who... the president gave you those keys, didn't he? Ness... Paula..."

"And Jeff, and Poo," Paula finished. "Yes, we're those kids. The ones who took on the nightmare and lived to tell about it."

"I don't understand," Belinda said, shaking her head slightly. "Why would your faces be appearing in the painting, and why can't I..."

"I don't think anyone else can see them," Paula interrupted. "And we can each see just our own. It's like looking in a mirror, it's like being..."

"Like being called," Ness interjected. "Or warned. Something's gotta be..." His eyes searched the painting again, making him feel uneasy. "Destiny. But I thought we'd already served ours, with Giygas two years ago."

"We defeated him," Paula said, her voice wavering. "We got rid of Giygas."

"I'm not suggesting he's back," Ness replied, frowning in thought, "maybe just... I don't know. I don't know what to think. When I see this thing, with all the red and pink and the bubble in the middle with my face in it, what do you think it reminds me of, Paula? It has to be connected to..."

"When we fought him, the last time." Paula closed her eyes, traveled back through memories she would prefer to forget, the Chosen Four battling their way through the Cave of the Past, until finally the face of Giygas was upon them, red and wrinkled, tangled of pale matter and in the center of it all, Ness's face. The bubble had been large and liquid, a cloudy white substance framing the image of the boy with the baseball cap. She realized now how remarkably similar the painting was, red upon red, crimson upon scarlet upon such an ominous white space, but what did it mean? What was happening?

"This better not be like last time. I don't think I want to go through all of that again, Ness, I can't..." Paula rubbed her forehead, wishing she was someplace else, someone else.

"Destiny," Ness read again. "Maybe it's been written." He addressed Belinda. "Any leads yet on who painted this, or how it got here?"

"Not a clue," Belinda answered sadly. "I'm afraid they may have given up on it, but I wish they hadn't, I knew something was wrong, I just didn't like the look of it..." Pausing, she processed his question again. "So you think someone painted it, and that it's not just some evil object that appeared here by magic or something?"

Paula smiled briefly at her mention of magic. "Neither would surprise me right now... is that what you're thinking, Ness?"

"I'm thinking that either way, there's trouble, somewhere, and there shouldn't be. Maybe it's not here yet, maybe it's hiding, maybe it's... Paula, we need to get Jeff and Poo out here to have a look at this."

Belinda watched them eyeing the door. "Is this dangerous? I mean, should the wing be closed off again, should the museum shut down for now..."

"I don't know if it's immediately dangerous," Ness said. "Hard to tell. It's a threat, but it only seems to be threatening a few of..."

"Look what it did to the museum curator," Paula blurted out. "Ness, I think it's more of a threat than we realize. You're right, we need Jeff and Poo. I think closing the wing off would be a good idea, except we don't want to attract too much attention..."

"I'll be here all afternoon, and most of this evening, in fact," Belinda announced. "I just remembered I'm staying late for a delivery tonight. If you come around seven, I can let you and your friends in without anyone hassling you, and I'll be on my guard if anyone tries to come down here for the rest of afternoon, though the east wing doesn't get many visitors these days." She wondered if this would get her fired, but decided it probably wouldn't, since she was doing it for the good of everyone, for the pursuit of peace.

"What about security?" Ness asked. "Won't they think it's strange when they see four kids in the museum after hours?"

"Leave them to me." Belinda thought about it for a minute, then raised a finger as it came to her. "I won't say anything to them, but if anyone shows up asking questions, I'll just say that you're my cousin and you dropped by with a message from my mother or something, and happened to bring your friends along. That sounds believable, right?"

"Better make Ness your cousin," Paula said, glancing at him. "His hair color is a little bit closer to yours than mine is."

"Oh, yeah," Belinda said, subconsciously pushing her dark brown hair behind her ears as she nodded. "That'll work, trust me. I mean, if that's..."

"It'd be great, we'd really appreciate it," Ness assured her. "Can we meet you somewhere?"

"Main entrance, I guess," Belinda said with a shrug. "I'll be waiting, it'll be fine. I..." She blinked at the two of them, so young and brave. "I hope everything will be okay," she said solemnly. "With your destiny..."

"We've been there before... it's not time to worry yet. Everything's gonna be okay," Ness proclaimed with an air of false confidence.

"Thank you so much for everything, umm..." Paula trailed off.

"Belinda," she supplied.

"Seriously, thanks for your help, Belinda," Paula continued. "And you said seven o'clock?"

"Seven it is," Belinda confirmed, and then Ness and Paula were out the door and on their way, and Belinda was left wondering what she'd gotten herself into, and what kind of trouble these kids were about to end up in.

The seven o'clock meeting turned out to be no problem. Belinda met the eager foursome at the main entrance and was surprised to find that security asked no questions, even though she knew that they should have. She made a mental note to bring this up to someone in the future.

"How come you couldn't just tell us what it was a painting of?" the one called Jeff asked as they hurried down the dim hallways. Short for a boy his age with an inquisitive spirit and thick glasses, Belinda recognized him right away as the son of the famous Dr. Andonuts of Winters.

"Just wait until you see it, Jeff," Paula said in reply as they rounded the last corner before entering the east wing. "It's down here in the corner... you won't believe it."

Belinda hurried ahead and flicked on a couple of overhead lights, brightening the corridor considerably. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of the painting, saw its reds and maroons pulse in the light. A shiver ran down her spine.

"That's the one, with the red background." Paula pointed it out, and was about to invite Jeff and Poo to check it out when she was interrupted.

"Oh my... it's me!" Poo had stepped up to look at the painting, jumping back in shock as the image of his own face came into focus. "Why is it a painting of me?"

"That's just it," Paula explained, "it's not just a painting of you, Poo. When I look at the white spot in the center, I see my own face. And Ness sees his. Jeff?" She nudged a skeptical-looking Jeff forward. "What do you see?"

Jeff squinted behind his glasses, then frowned. "It's... I see myself. It's me." He shut his eyes for a moment, then looked at the group. "What's going on?"

"Wish I knew," Ness said, taking a step towards the painting. "It's like it wants us, or it's warning us. Foreshadowing?"

"Foreshadowing what, though?" Poo wondered. "Another attack? Giygas... is no more..."

"That's what I thought, Poo," Paula said with a nod, "but now I'm not so sure..."

"Where did this painting come from?" Poo asked Belinda. "Surely someone must know something about it, right?"

Belinda shook her head. "I wish. It just seemed to appear on the wall one day. No one knows how it got here, who painted it, what painted it, if it just materialized out of thin air, the police couldn't even find anything physically wrong with it when they did their investigation, so the wing was reopened to the public, though not too many have braved this part of the museum since the whole thing began." Her eyes fell on the familiar faces of Paula and Ness. "The world's in danger, isn't it? Isn't that what this means?"

"Could mean," Ness answered. "With evil, it's so hard to tell..."

"This clearly is no ordinary painting, you must admit that," Poo observed. "Something is certainly at work here. Normal paintings don't change their faces when different people view them."

"You haven't felt anything... strange, lately, have you, Ness?" Paula's hand found his wrist, and she looked into his eyes. "Unusual feelings, unusual forces... no voices, nothing at all like last time? When you had your... Buzz Buzz..." She stared at him, nervously tracing small circles on his wrist with her thumb. "Anything?"

Ness glanced down at where their hands met. "What're you doing?" he said, smiling.

"Oh... nothing." Paula dropped his wrist as her cheeks flushed a pale pink. "Sort of trying to feel your energy flow, to see if I can read you. I've learned to do it with some objects, but never with people. You know, since you were such a focal point in the last attack, like a channel point for everything that happened to us... I'm sorry, I'm not making any sense, am I?" She stepped away, suddenly shy. Belinda couldn't help smiling, seeing the tall, dark-haired reason that such a strong and wise girl had suddenly fallen to pieces.

"No, I... I actually think I got that," Ness said, visibly weighing it in his mind, which seemed to please Paula. "I'm thinking, but I really can't recall anything weird happening lately, certainly no talking bees visiting me in the night." He noticed Belinda giving him a funny look. "Long story."

"I bet," Belinda said with a chuckle. "There's got to be something else, though, hasn't there? I mean, if this is all the warning you're getting, it's not a very good one. Doesn't really tell you much, does it?"

"Just who's involved. Who it wants," Paula said, still a little timid. "Us."

Jeff, who had been gaping at the painting for several minutes now, pulled off his glasses and squinted harder at it. "I just don't get it. This... isn't possible..."

"With Giygas, anything was possible," Ness reminded him. "He could do anything."

"Anything except defeat us," Poo said firmly. "The Chosen Four. We may not know what is coming, or when, or how, but somehow, I sense that we will be prepared when our moment comes."

"Amen to that," Paula commented, grinning at the group. "If it's a fight Giygas wants, we'll finish him!"

Ness felt his old spirit returning again, but he had to sigh. "Finish him... now, if only we knew where to start..."