20

rebirth

Nix

“Architect, save our Mystiquiel.”

At the Goblin King’s request, I turn to look at the screen. A charred necrosis poisons the landscapes, with the exception of flowers blossoming unhindered in each setting—checkered and marbled, speckled and striped—a patchwork of glittering, prismatic bouquets that seem out of place and somehow survived the flames.

My vision rages to pinpoints of red, homed in on the cause of the ruins. Burned buildings fall and scorched streets crumble beneath the antics of the unnatural monsters infecting the town.

I focus on them and visualize their actuality.

“Breathe and be born,” I whisper, and my floral, leafy gown quivers and glows as the artworks metamorphose, no longer paper or paint or pastry but organic matter with hearts that beat and veins that bleed. They snarl and rage, threatening further destruction. The temptation to crush them is great, but they’re my children—their empty minds influenced by an evil that no longer exists. So instead, I chastise them. I shrink them down to infants no bigger than grubs wriggling in the rubble they made. Frightened and helpless, they cry and shiver in their naked, nescient forms.

The Goblin King sends his owl to gather them. Together, Mystiquiel’s populace will raise the impressionable beasts to love this world. To revere their king, and to guard our lands from all harm. To belong.

The king smiles, his fangs pressing dimples along his bottom lip. “Well done. They’ll be lumps of clay to reshape at our hands. Now, heal your paradise.”

I return his smile, heart brimming with joy at the opportunity.

First, I turn to the lair around me and hug myself, soothing the ache for all the devastation I see. With a heavy sigh, I open my arms wide and spin in place, my gown—a glitter of petals and ivy leaves—whipping around me at each turn, stirring up dust and debris. A whirlwind forms, capturing the detritus. All the fallen fragments, all the busted parts, funnel upward then explode: a reverse rain that rebuilds the hollowed space in a matter of moments. The tulip reassembles, shredded pieces twined together into creamy furls then folding closed as if on hinges, fisting around a Heart that doesn’t beat, but instead hums with life.

And with the Heart’s awakening, I’m omniscient.

I wink a sunrise, an eye placed in the sky. Fringes of light splay long and luminous from the edges, lashes of apricot and pink wrapping around the moon and dragging it to slumber beneath a horizon mended by a wave of my arm. Hundreds of occupied preservation bubbles glimmer in the atmosphere, their casings reflecting the dawn.

The king steps forward and offers me his golden palm, specked with orchard seeds.

I nod and cup the seeds lovingly. Looking down on everything at once through my sun’s fixed stare, I raise my hands. The screen opens, and the petals on the back of my gown elongate and spread into wings. A gust of wind lifts me, as if I were a kite, and sends me sailing across the panorama.

I marvel at the blissful freedom, breathing in the scent of damp soot, fallen rain, and sodden leaves.

The air currents carry me to the royal orchards, where I release the goblin fruit seeds proffered by the king, letting them fall from the heights in a blinding snow. They scatter—instinctively finding their given season in which to propagate. I blow across the hinterland to summon a cleansing fog. The orchards disappear from sight, buried under heavy mists. I swoop within and spin the haze around me—absorbing all the ash, embers, waste, and gloom—into a cape of woolen clouds. Unhindered, the trees resurrect from the ground, sheathed in healthy bark. Their canopies swell with leaves and bloom with fragrant, jeweled fruits.

Above the orchards once more, I spin the opposite direction, discarding my cape of clouds, adorning the bright blue sky in cottony grayish-white festoons.

I hover over the crumpled castle. With a clap of my hands, I summon the black and jagged bits—vicious and biting—to deliquesce and rush into puddles of shimmery night. Out of their depths, waves rise and spike upward to meet in the middle and harden in slabs of tungsten. With thunderous shifts and clicks they form chambers, walls, battlements, roofs, and turrets.

All that’s left is the town. I soar over the ruins, envisioning the splendor it once was. It takes only a tap of my finger, a wisp of a word, to put it all back to rights: the buildings, bridges, trees, streets, and sidewalks popping up in perfect symmetry. Only the sooty stains remain as proof of what transpired.

I nod, and they lift off into bands of smoke that dissipate into the sky, joining the clouds already in place. I grab hold of one and give it a shake. In response, all the clouds shiver, and sheets of rain begin to fall, a cleansing purge that leaves everything—bricks, cement, graffiti art, bark and leaves, asphalt and rooftops—gleaming, fresh and new.

Once the rain stops, Perish drifts upon the scene encapsulated by a protective casing, his subjects trailing him in a parade of matching bubbles. His own bursts the instant his feet touch ground. He waves me down and I alight next to the sign that reads Mystiquiel.

Perish stands there already, looking lovingly upon a statue. I only scarcely notice the citizens of the world and a human boy bursting out from their bubbles to gather around. I’m too intrigued by the girl of golden stone—from another time, another place. With the king standing beside her, shimmery puddles reflecting the sky’s white clouds across their feet, it’s like looking upon a bride and groom atop a wedding cake.

I would think her me, but for the fairy wings and goblin ears. Her dress, chiseled of flowers, also differs from my own with the addition of dragonfly pinions and dandelion fuzz. I trace the long flow of her stony hair in wonder, trailing a fingertip across a wreath of ivy, realizing I carved all these lines. She was crafted by my hand.

More of our fey populace have appeared—some brought here by the trolley, others having arrived by foot. There’s even a man, covered in sand and smelling of the ocean, alongside a woman scented of tea, and a furry beast with four legs . . . ​one of which appears to be made of metal—led into the crowd by the Goblin King’s owl and its inky shadow. The two newly arrived humans look on with awe and deep concern magnified by the tears and glassy spectacles over their eyes. The man puts one arm around the woman and another around the boy, whose shoulders slump beneath the same anxious weight as he strokes the head of the four-legged beast. Their group stands back from the eldritch as if not of their kinship—here only by invitation. The king nods to them, confirming his blood brought them across the veil. The humans seem as captivated by the statue as everyone in the audience, and their beast whimpers as if even it understands something I’m missing.

“Why did I cast such a strange likeness of myself?” I direct my query to the Goblin King. “Is she a trophy, meant to guard the entrance?”

“She’s my beloved queen,” the king answers, his voice grinding with anguish. “Trapped inside an enchantment gone terribly wrong.” He places his left hand upon her shoulder, and I see a ring of red thread encircling his finger. “You created this likeness of her. Now I need you to make it a home for her spirit. Wake her from her slumber . . . ​breathe flesh, blood, and bones into this shell. I’ll do the rest.”

I don’t even hesitate. I’m the Architect, after all. Giving life to my creations is my calling. “Breathe and be born,” I command, and touch the wreath at her forehead.

It takes less than an instant. Her golden lashes flutter, her nose twitches, and then she blinks her eyes wide, revealing irises the color of plum wine. Dual pupils dance across each one, glimmering white like diminutive moons. Her skin softens, glistening with each movement as she tests out arms, legs, fingers, and toes. The goblin girl spins, her gown as real as her, still bearing the residue of rain glittering on pink, orange, and yellow flower petals. Her wings, translucent at her back, are twins to the dragonfly appendages stitched into the seams of her dress, though a filmy dusting of gold catches the light as her own flap open and closed. She turns her head, left to right, taking in her audience, but there’s no recognition on her face. Instead, there’s horror.

Her dark, full lips gape, and she wails.

The Goblin King steps up, hope bright in his matching eyes. Snarling like a feral beast, she jerks back a hand to slap him. He catches it and slides the threaded ring into place on her finger. It melts into her skin, and immediately her expression changes from confusion to adulation.

“Perish.” She recites his name as if it were poetry and throws her arms around him.

“Larkling.” He lifts her in his powerful embrace, her toes leaving the ground, holding her up so he can kiss her soundly.

“It worked,” she mumbles against his lips through tears, her fingers weaving through the burgundy-and-white strands of his hair.

His antlers and crown light up in response. “Nothing has ever tasted so sweet as your happiness,” he answers.

She hugs him tighter as he nuzzles her golden hair; then he places her gently on the ground.

I watch them both—and the obvious love between them—bewildered yet intrigued.

The human boy, man, and woman wind their way forward with the four-legged creature, taking turns greeting the goblin girl, each one crying as they hold her close. Then, all turn to look at me, eyes wet and expectant.

“Your turn, Phoenix,” the Goblin King says to me, joining the quartet. He holds a bouquet of wildflowers he must’ve gathered from the ground—those oddly patterned genera that looked so out of place. The only ones left untouched by flames and destruction.

“Phoe-nix?” I sound out the syllables. The word is vaguely familiar, a human term for a bird who rises from the ash. “Is that what these flowers are called?” I ask, thinking it a fitting name for something so beautiful yet indestructible.

The goblin girl takes the bouquet from her king’s hand. “It’s what you’re called.” She lifts the flowers to me. “Breathe them in, and remember.”

Eyebrows crimped, I press my nose into the flowers. With just one breath, I smell the salt of the ocean, wet dog, and the dusty grit of sand, autumn leaves, marshmallows and campfires, cookies and cupcakes baking in the oven, honeysuckle vines and floral tea, spray paint and pen ink, machine oil and gum paste—and last but not least, the scent of fresh rain. Petrichor. The word jostles loose in my head.

I draw in a deeper breath, wanting more, wishing to inhale everything. The brilliant colors of each wildflower liquidize to a flood of images that seep into my mind and heart: sand castles; Halloween costumes; spelling bees; trolley rides; holidays and school activities; a loving uncle, always there; classes and friends; a flower boutique owner, so like family but yet much more; a boy and his border collie who are both mine in every way that matters; a picture book bequeathed by a loving, absent mother; a father’s pocket watch that tells time only in an alternate world; sketches and robots; two sisters linking pinkies, sometimes competing yet still grounded in love; a Goblin King; an enchanted bakery; a rusting fairyland brought to rights—each melting petal ushering in a lifetime of memories.

When I look up, I’m holding nothing but stems and leaves. Uncle Thatch, Juniper, Clarey, and Flannie are in my peripheral, but all I see is my sister’s beloved face and new body—both glazed in gold. She’s forever changed, yet breathing and alive.

I yelp and catch her in my arms, snuggling my nose against her neck. Tears made of flower petals drain down my face and saturate her hair with rainbows. “Lark,” I whisper, relishing the feel of her soft warmth and strong heartbeat against me. “I’ve missed you! I love you so so much.”

She embraces me back, weeping. “I love you, too, dear sister. Always.”

Our bodies shake on a shared sob, and we stand back to join pinkies. So enthralled with sharing memories—both lost and found—in a silent conversation, we barely hear the clamor all around us as voices, human and eldritch alike, along with the lone excited yip of a dog, rise together in joyous celebration.