A Fortress of Pebbles

On the way to the Room of Dreams, Tassadu probed about the kids' parents – trying to suss out whether they all got along. It was hard to tell. Their dad was “cool” and “fine” and “chill” – and apparently either so complex or so boring as to inspire only one-word responses. Their mom, it would seem, had once been their homeschooling teacher but had recently gotten busy with a book she was writing, and with visiting their grandfather in the hospital.

His talon paused before he tickled open the orifice to the Room of Dreams. “So whose bird clock is it, your mom’s or your dad’s?”

Orion snorted, like it was a dumb question. “Dad likes to shoot birds with his glock.”

“Okay, then I want you to imagine your mom’s bird clock for me,” said Tassadu. “Do you have it in your mind?”

And when the orifice expanded, it revealed – to gasps from the Johnson twins – a kitchen in which a bird clock between the cabinets and the gas stove was just striking magpie o’clock. Cassandra and Orion rushed in as if they hadn’t been home in years.

Tassadu gave Aissaba a wink and whispered, “If they want to go home, let’s give them their home.”

Aissaba nodded warily. It was risky. Giving them visions of home might make them all the more homesick. But it was worth a shot.

Orion took his spot at the kitchen table so quickly it made Aissaba wince. “Careful!” she said. “Remember – none of this is real. It’s just the mind pebbles in the walls reflecting and amplifying your own memories.”

Orion tipped back in his chair skeptically, while Cassandra knocked on the wooden table. “It looks so real,” she said.

“The room generates graymatter to provide physical resistance. It’s quick, but it does take a few seconds,” explained Assaba. “You’re sitting on a blob of it right now. The hallucination makes it look and feel like a chair.”

Tassadu opened the fridge, revealing mostly empty shelves. “You don’t eat much, do you?”

Cassandra explained that their favorite food was mac and cheese, which prompted Orion to bolt out of his chair. He flung open the pantry where, indeed, an entire shelf was dedicated to boxes of Kraft. “Can you make me some?” he asked Aissaba.

Her first thought was, “I’m not your mom, buddy.” But she managed to keep it inside.

“How’s this?” said Tassadu. He was setting two steaming bowls of mac and cheese on the table. “If you want something, you just have to imagine it.”

The kids eagerly started shoveling the goopy orange noodles into their mouths. After finishing his bowl, Orion said, “It doesn’t really fill you up, though, does it?”

“It’s just dream food,” said Aissaba, squinting out the window where a man with long hair was standing in the yard with a t-shirt, in spite of the cold. He was facing away from the house and pointing a handgun toward a distant target near the treeline. “Is that your dad?” The crack of gunfire made Aissaba flinch, but the kids barely seemed to notice.

“Yeah, he’s always out there,” said Cassandra with a hint of sadness perhaps.

“What’s he doing?” said Aissaba, trying desperately to connect.

“Practicing, obviously,” said Orion.

Aissaba was about to ask “for what” – but Cassandra cut in, “Do you have parents?”

Bang, bang, bang, went the handgun as Aissaba took a seat at the table – presumably in one of their parent’s spots. Tassadu took the other. They didn’t need to look at each other to know that this was their first real chance, the first time either of the kids had asked them anything personal. Although Aissaba had a feeling Cassandra had done it to avoid talking about their own parents, it was still something. If anything, they’d stumbled on the one thing they all had in common: parent issues.

Aissaba answered so that Tassadu didn’t have to. Got your back, bro, her face told him. With kids, as with adults, if you wanted to get information, you had to give it. So she went for the big stuff: “My mom works at the cafeteria,” she said. “She used to be a high ranking scribe under Tassadu’s dad. Like really high. But he demoted her a few years ago.”

Their faces showed that they were chewing on all of it. Cassandra was, quite literally, chewing thoughtfully on the dream mac and cheese. Orion was looking over her shoulder with an uncharacteristically thoughtful expression on his face. Aissaba anticipated any number of questions next: What is the Fortress cafeteria like? Is Tassadu’s dad a dragon too? Why’d he demote your mom?

But what came out of Orion’s mouth was. “Is that what she looks like?”

Aissaba turned in her chair to see her mother at the stove, cooking mac and cheese and humming to herself. Her first thought was to banish the vision, like correcting a wardrobe malfunction that had accidentally flashed some skin. But Tassadu put his hand softly on her arm, stopping her from editing the hallucination.

I want to try something, his eyes said.

“Can I be honest with you?” he said to the kids. “Sometimes the Fortress sucks.”