It tumbled me, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe water anymore. Once, when I went to California to visit my grandparents, I had been swallowed by a big wave. It had picked me up and turned me over and over until I didn’t know which way was up. I couldn’t breathe, didn’t know how to escape, and I had thrashed helplessly. I would probably have drowned, except Dad plucked me up, out of the wave.
The vortex was like that, except I knew no one would save me. Maybe there wasn’t even an “up” where I could catch my breath. Maybe the Robsombulous simply drowned you.
Then a blue hand reached in and grabbed me, yanked hard, and I was drawn out of the vortex.
The spinning water drained away, swirling over my head and then vanishing like mist. I wasn’t in the ocean anymore. I stood in a meadow with golden sunflowers taller than I was. The sun was bright, and the white streaks across the sky were majestic. I turned, but all I could see were sunflower stalks and flowers the size of my head.
“Lorelei,” came a soft voice. I turned toward the voice and stepped into an open meadow. Ripple was waiting for me.
I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could, she slowly transformed. She grew taller, and her ocean dress blushed until it was lavender. It was decorated with silver embroidery at the neckline and a heavy sash around the waist. Ripple’s blue hair became tumbling dark locks curling over her forehead and cheeks. Her all-blue eyes turned lavender with the whites that a normal human would have. Her skin was paler than mine, but no longer blue. She was human, a teenager. Maybe even older.
“Ripple!”
She smiled. “Verily, I am she, but then also, I am not,” she said.
The realization hit me. “You’re a Doolivanti!” She wasn’t a creation of the Wishing World, like Gruffy or the Flimflams; she was a creator like Sir Real and Theron. Like me.
The teenager-who-was-Ripple laughed, soft and husky. “Lorelei, thy mind is bright and agile. Full of questions and great imaginings. Thou art what this world was meant to achieve.” She paused. “I felt thee ere thou didst arrive, in that first moment thou didst call to the threads and took them in hand. I had to come to see thee and be part of thy story. To look into thy heart and know thee.”
“So you are a Doolivanti. Or are you something else?” She was by far the oldest kid I’d seen in Veloran.
“I didst don the name ‘Ripple’ when first I found myself at the shore of the Eternal Sea. As did thy brother at the skirt of the Kaleidoscope Forest. As did thy friend Sir Real ’neath the sparkling leaves of the Silverweft. Twas not a lie when I told thee Ripple’s body was born of the Eternal Sea. As thy true name is Lorelei, mine is Vella. Vella Wren.”
My mouth hung open. “Vella Wren … Veloran?”
She smiled, and a blush crept into her cheeks. “I am caretaker here, and so have I been for many years. I do foster the wondrous imaginations in this place, and these children who would dream to grow stronger.”
“You made Veloran?”
She shook her head. “This creation belongs not to one child, but to all. Together, we do lean upon each other to make the impossible. What thy friend Gruffy flatteringly calls Veloran is but a conversation twixt the imaginings of each child. This world is a tapestry of wondrous delight made of children’s voices, each talking to the other, each of their wills interweaving like threads. The tapestry is ever expanding, seeking out children on many worlds, finding new Doolivantis, inviting them with flecks of herself and weaving them into the fabric.” She nodded at my necklace.
“The comet stones.”
“Indeed.”
“And you’re the caretaker of Veloran. What does that mean?”
“An’ this Wishing World dost breathe, I feel the wind. An’ this Wishing World be cut, then do I bleed.” She paused, then opened the side of her dress, revealing a long, red gash exactly where the little wound had been when I’d first met her.
I covered my mouth with my hand.
“Thou wouldst have destroyed the Robsombulous,” she said. “This, I could not allow, not until thou didst fully understand thy actions. So I took thee away that we might converse, that thou might knowest the consequences of thy power.”
“The Robsombulous didn’t send me here?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Twas I. There are far reaches of this land, and to some only I have traveled.”
“You took me away so I wouldn’t hurt the Robsombulous.”
“Only this once, yes.”
“And what about Jimmy?”
Vella gave a little sigh. “Alas, Jimmy,” she said. “As with all children called here, he is wounded. His hurt doth run so deep it grips the heart. His wrath spills over to those around him. Yet through all this, some things he sees most clearly.”
“He’s horrible.”
“Twas Jimmy who kept his father from returning. That was no small thing.”
“So he’s a hero for doing the obvious? Mr. Schmindly is horrible, too.”
“All creatures harbor creation and destruction alike,” Vella said. “Hast thou never spit thy venom at another in thy pain, Lorelei? Hast not thy brother?”
“Jimmy isn’t throwing a tantrum. He’s killing people! It’s psycho. Double psycho with magic on top.”
Vella sighed. “Each piece of this world arises from a different child’s heart. Each with their own need and their own lessons to learn. Witness thy friend, Sir Real.”
I didn’t like the way Vella took Jimmy’s side. “Sir Real said the Wishing World created the Flimflams for him. He didn’t steal them. Or kill someone to get them.”
“They didst rise from his need,” Vella said. “They didst become his family. As did thine own companions.”
I remembered what Sir Real had said. I shook my head. “Gruffy, Pip, and Squeak were here before I got here. Gruffy was there in the rain, a year ago.”
“Gruffy and his friends have been a curiosity of mine, tis true. They didst come to be after Jimmy’s storm formed around the Eternal Sea, yet I knew not where from. Twas this Wishing World, Lorelei. Thou didst need a protector in that storm. An’ with Jimmy’s doorway open, the world did hear thee and respond, and thy griffon was born, e’en though thou had not been invited. Never have I seen this, in all my years as steward. And then thou didst go e’en further, thou didst pull thy griffon into thine own world. Thy imagination, thy will … Thou dost break rules I thought immutable. Thou opened thine own passage from Earth. I first felt thee then, the might of thee, straining against the fabric. Twas then I knew from whence this Gruffy the griffon had come, and this Pip and Squeak. Hastily did I attempt to invite thee. But thou didst refuse, and this Wishing World was unable to make thee into the Loremaster.”
“That was you?” I said.
She nodded. “A scant few children have refused before, and this Wishing World did close the door to them, but thy will was indomitable. The door could not be closed. Thou wert stronger, an’ thou didst come ahead regardless.”
“You’re saying Gruffy and the others are my replacement family, like Sir Real thinks.” Gruffy my protector. Pip the parent. And Squeak the indecipherable book of wisdom. “So I made them for what I needed, and they’re not real. Just like Jimmy said. They’re paper cutouts. Video game characters.”
“Oh, Lorelei. Thy passion makes noble Gruffy the most real creature in all of Veloran. Bright imagination crafts the real. Has he not grown beyond your original intent, changing more with each passing moment? Does he not deepen? Does he not ask more questions about his life and the world?”
I thought about the barrage of questions Gruffy had asked just before the Robsombulous. He’d not been curious at all when I first arrived, only filled with the need to protect.
“I’m so confused,” I said.
Vella’s eyes sparkled. “Thou didst come to this Wishing World already knowing what other children come to learn: how to dream. How to make dreams real. Children need this place to paint their own paintings and write their own stories, and perchance to return to their own worlds with certainty and strength.” Her lavender gaze held me. “None may simply point their fingers and alter this scape as thou dost. None have defied the fabric of this Wishing World and stayed.”
“Jimmy opened a doorway to Earth!”
“He is the Ink King, shaped by this Wishing World. His ability is linked to his inky shadows, which opened the veil to Earth. He doth speak into the conversation as others before him. He didst bring adults here, which is unusual, but it has been done before. I’faith, he didst bring them under the power of this Wishing World, and so they sleep as though in a dream. Children such as Jimmy have been seen before.”
“Oh, good. So because he’s using the Wishing World the right way, he gets to kidnap people? He gets to take my parents and sling my brother into the Kaleidoscope Forest to fend for himself or die?!”
“Theron didst fend amazingly well.”
“That is so not the point.”
“Milady Lorelei, didst thou know I was a child like Jimmy when I did first arrive? Angered and helpless. Tis why this Wishing World does invite children. Here might Jimmy learn to see beauty, to feel strong and safe again. Given this dominion he believes he craves, soon shall he discover his true craving: respect and love.”
“So how long does he get to figure it out? How many other people does he get to hurt before you stop him?” I asked.
Vella looked down, her pale toes digging into the grass. “We have had arguments between children before.”
“Arguments? Jimmy is killing other Doolivantis! Just send him back to Earth!”
“Until the next Jimmy doth arrive? Or the next Lorelei…?”
“The next…” Her words hit me hard, like she’d punched me in the chest, and I actually took a step back. “The next me?”
“Thou art exciting and terrifying and driven beyond any child I have ever seen. Thy will cuts through the wills of others as if they were paper. What thou dost dislike, thou dost change, no matter the consequence.”
“I never wanted to hurt this place.”
“Ah,” Vella said softly. “But what dost thou wish e’en more?”
I felt hollow, and I couldn’t speak.
“Yes.” Vella looked down at her toes again, picking at the grass. “Thou wilt not leave without thy brother or thy parents. Thou art fiery and noble and unstoppable. Every moment thou doth persist, the fabric strains e’en more. Every command thou makest rips the world wider. And there are none who can stop thee.”
“If Veloran rips, what happens to the children?” I asked.
“They shall return to their own worlds, but the conversation shall be over.”
“What about Gruffy? Pip and Squeak? The Flimflams? What about those who were born here?”
“They do but live through the dreams of children. Without the children…” She opened her hands.
“They’ll die,” I whispered.
“Yes.”
“Then you take my parents away from Jimmy. I won’t use my powers and I’ll … I’ll just go,” I said, and my voice broke. I held onto the feather Gruffy had given me. My link to him.
“I cannot force Jimmy to release thy parents,” Vella said.
I looked at her. “But I can.”
“This remains to be seen.”
“What if … What if I could use just a little power to stop him, to get my parents back?”
“A little power to stop the Ink King?”
I turned away. “So what happens now?”
“Thou dost make thy choice.”
“Why is it my choice?” I shouted, turning on her. “Why not Jimmy?”
“Because it is thy choice.”
“And if I don’t listen? If I say I don’t care?”
“Then perhaps tis here, now, where this conversation between children and this Wishing World must end.” Vella gave no indication whether this made her sad or mad or anything.
I clenched my fists.
Vella gazed at me steadily. “What dost thou wish to do?”
I looked through my tears at the beautiful meadow. I thought of Gruffy, Pip, and Squeak. HuggyBug. All the Grumpalons and the Flimflams.
Then I thought of my brother, lost for a whole year because of Jimmy’s selfishness. I thought of my poor mom and dad, locked away who knows where in the sleep of the dead.
I set my jaw.
“Send me back to Jimmy.” I didn’t look Vella in the eyes.
She paused a moment, then said, “As you wish.”
* * *
The sunflower meadow began to change. It became flat, like I was stepping back from a painting, and then thin strips peeled away, one after the other until the meadow was gone, revealing a blackness. I tumbled in, falling …
Then I was swirling through dark water. I kept my mouth shut and didn’t try to breathe. My hands did not feel webbed. My feet did not feel like flippers. I fought my way upward and broke the surface, gasping for breath.
Rain came down, pocking the top of the sea, and an island loomed in front of me. Ripple’s palace stood dark against the gray rain, seven spires pointing skyward. A wide staircase swept down to the water. I swam to it and stood up on the first step, water dripping off me from the sea, water falling down on me from the sky.
This was the palace inside the storm that stole my life away. And the Ink King was its heart. Jimmy, who started all of this, who took what he wanted no matter who it hurt. I couldn’t just let him do that. Not with my family.
The falling rain didn’t scare me now. I knew what was real and what wasn’t. I knew who was to blame, and this time I could stop him.