Lizard Girl & Ghost

by Olga Werby

  “I’ll be careful,” she tells me. “But if I don’t go down there, how are we going to learn anything?”

  It’s a good point, but Ghost is the one who is supposed to be learning things. Where is that sly cat? I make more barely audible low noises and flap higher. I need to find a better location for Pixie’s transfer. She is looking, too. We see that the arboreal walkway encircles the Ring City. A ring within a ring within a ring within a ring. The architect had no imagination. But this suspended hidden walkway is very cool. It’s made by connecting living walkable branches, weaving them together to form a structure. I can see places where a new portion of the walkway is being grown out. Now, it looks like a fragile basket, but I can imagine how it will be in a few decades… Well, it’s virtual timescales here; likely it will only take days or even hours. The walkway must be teeming with ghosts, continuously overseeing maintenance and encouraging proper growth. I can quickly check if that’s true if I switch my eye options, but I stick with X-Rays—I want details of the existing structure. And there’s the maggot issue…

  “This is amazing,” Pixie says. “Too bad we didn’t get to walk here. I mean…I don’t mean that the way it sounded, Jude. You did a wonderful job getting us here. Fast and efficient. I’m very grateful. It’s just that it’s—”

  I bray softly to shut her up; she already put her foot in her mouth. I did a great job of getting us here.

  “Look!” She points to a girl in a tutu being escorted into the city by three cats and a big black panther—Ghost, Slick, Sleazy, and Doc. So, Ghost found them. Why didn’t he tell me? We watch from above; the merry group hasn’t noticed us yet. Good. I would like to know where they are taking that girl.

  “Isn’t that you?” Pixie asks.

  What? X-Ray vision is not great at facial features or color. I consult my snakes. Sure enough, that’s me—the real world image of me, like the dead princess in the glass coffin sealed in the middle of the glass tower, in the center of the glass lake. Her tutu is pink, too. What does that mean? Is there another me in this adventure? Am I the dead—sleeping—princess that we are supposed to rescue? If that is true, what am I? The giant green dragon? The funny thing is that I am getting used to this multiplicity. I feel more comfortable in my green dragon skin than I think I would in that pink tutu. With all of these repeated appearances, that girl wearing the image of me from the real world doesn’t feel so personal anymore. I’m me, and she is…something else, separate from me.

  We observe the group as they climb down in front of the Ring City gate. Ghost does something and a drawbridge descends over the moat. The clowder of cats takes the doppelgänger me across, and the group disappears into the city.

  “Do you want me to follow them?” Pixie asks. I do. I very much do.

  I land in front of the drawbridge and Pixie gets down. I’m relieved she doesn’t have to climb up into the trees. She waves goodbye and trots after Ghost and all. Before she disappears, she makes a sign for me to wait right there. As if! As soon as Pixie is out of sight, I leap up again. My plan is to make a full circle around the Ring City and find all of its entrances and exits. I assume the tree pathway will reveal where those are by leaving little clues like ladders, slides, and stairs.

  24. What Do You Want?

  My curiosity gets the better of me. I just have to know what the forest walkway looks like in Ghost vision. There is something amazing about a living, growing road maintained by an army of determined mini ghost apps. Scanning the terrain from above, I slide Ghost peeps back on. There are billions of apps, one for each cyber organism—every tree, each blade of grass, each furry creature sprouting flowers, and every insect buzzing a musical tune. It’s almost too much to take in. I am glad I didn’t do this on the shore of the glass lake. All those glass snails…ugh.

  I fly low, to narrow my field of view. I notice little bulbous, fruit-like things hanging off the branches of the walkway-bearing trees. They dangle on two miniature but muscular arms and brachiate hand over hand to move from place to place, branch to branch. They don’t have eyes, but there is a sharp straw—or maybe a stinger—where their mouth should have been. They insert the straws into the bark and then pull them out, over and over again. It looks like they are drinking the sap from the trees, or could they be injecting life into them? The fruits of life, out here, in the Sleeping Beauty world. It’s creepy and beautiful all at the same time. If I were smaller, I would have found a way to examine one of them closer, but I am big. Huge. I can only admire the weirdness of this forest from a distance.

  I fly from copse to copse, hovering at each. Some tree boughs link up to form little arboreal piazzas. I guess travelers can rest at these spots on the walkway. I try to find one big enough for me to land on, but even if I do, I would still need to get through the thick, leafy canopy. I keep flying, looking for a landing spot, when one of my snakes spots an observation platform at the very top of the forest. Perfect!

  I land and switch my vision to my normal dragon sight. Where are those little sapsuckers? I make all of my eyes look for one of the strange fruits I spied earlier. But either they require Ghost vision to see—like the evil maggots via MalSpy—or they just don’t like the sunshine up here.

  “Welcome back, Lizard Girl,” says a familiar raspy voice behind me.

  How is it that with all of these heads and eyes someone is still able to sneak up on me? I bray aggravation and try to turn around, breaking a bunch of branches in the process.

  “Careful there,” Gattara tells me.

  How did you even know I was here?

  “I tracked your progress. When you were close, I moved this luftmensch square above the treetops so you could find it.”

  Wait, wait, wait. You can read my mind? I ask.

  “Only the thoughts you want me to,” Gattara said.

  Well, that’s something.

  “Heard that,” she says with a smile. “You need to keep your mind quieter. You are broadcasting on all frequencies.”

  How do I not do that? I try to still my mind. I don’t want Gattara to read me—I don’t really trust her.

  “Better,” she says. “I will do my best to ignore everything that you don’t address to me directly first.”

  Gattara? Can you hear my mind when I don’t want you to listen in? I ask, prefacing my question with her name. I can play games, if that is what’s required and if I know the rules.

  “You catch on fast, Lizard Girl. Yes, I can hear you still, but I will try not to.”

  Gattara. So kind of you. I try to keep my mind blank. But it’s like telling myself not to think about amethyst pachyderms. An elephant immediately pops into mind in all of its purple glory.

  Gattara is surrounded by her posse of hairy apps. They form a thick cloud around her, shrouding her movements, distracting my attention from her face. Who does she remind me of? I can’t remember.

  “What do you want, child?” she asks.

  Gattara. It would be nice not to have a glass neck. I feel particularly fragile amid all of her grabby little apps.

  “What is it that you really want?” she asks, ignoring my complaint.

  I don’t know. Do I want anything? Notwithstanding everything that has gone on this little adventure, I am enjoying the strange reality. I like this forest, these trees, this arboreal space. I am comfortable. I think…

  “What do you want?” she asks again.

  It’s such a silly question. Why would I, a powerful green dragon, want anything? I am happy. I’m content. I try to think. Should I be remembering something?

  “Try harder,” she says. “What do you want, Lizard Girl?”

  I’m a powerful dragon—

  “Lizard Girl.”

  Dragon!

  “Girl.”

  I’m confused.

  “Remember what you want, Jude.”

  Jude? Who’s Jude?

  Jude, Jude, Jude, Jude… Little apps are singing in my head.

  I see a little girl in a
pink tutu walking with her dad. Who is she? She looks like the dead princess we discovered in the lake. Like the girl Ghost and the rest are taking into the Ring City. Is that Jude?

  “Try to remember,” Gattara urges. But each time I touch the memory of that girl, it shatters into a million pieces, like the sands of that glass lake, all sharp and pointy. Painful. I push the vision of the girl aside. What is she to me? Nothing. But I do want to explore the Ring City with my friends. That’s it! I want to go into the city but I am too big.

  Gattara. I make sure to call her name out first. I want to go into the city with my friends. There. I know what I want.

  “I can do that,” she says. “But first, I would like to tell you a story.”

  Gattara. Is this some kind of a test? Is it part of this adventure? I like solving game puzzles. I get a flash of that girl sitting in a little pink bedroom with her father playing games on her cyber terminal.

  Gattara ignores me and starts her story.

  “There was once a beautiful woman,” Gattara begins.

  I stretch out to get more comfortable. I love a good story.

  “And she met a beautiful man,” Gattara continues, her voice almost hypnotic, the raspiness like crushed velvet. “He was but a boy then, but she loved him still.”

  I like this story a lot. I close some of my eyes and pay attention to the gentle melody of the tree leaves rustling all around us. My rhythm app pulsates color patterns on my scales to accompany Gattara’s voice and the music of the forest.

  “The man had more than just an attractive body and a handsome face. He had a beautiful mind. It was his mind the woman loved.”

  Yes, yes, I can see that. What’s a gorgeous body without a beautiful mind?

  “The man had a best friend, who was also beautiful. And the woman was jealous, because the man she loved spent so much time with his friend.”

  Didn’t the man love the woman back? Or did he love his friend more? If that were true, this would be a sad story. I like it anyway. I listen carefully to every word.

  “The beautiful man and his friend worked on a very important project together: the Gilgamesh Project.”

  Gilgamesh?

  “The story of Gilgamesh is another love story—the story of King Gilgamesh and his best friend. When the king’s friend died, Gilgamesh was so wounded by the loss that he vowed to find a cure for death. He traveled into the underworld where the dead lived and battled terrible opponents, but he never found the cure. He learned that men had to accept death, even when they lost a loved one.”

  That’s a horrible story. I never want to lose anyone I love. That would be worse than dying. I feel tears forming in my many eyes. I hear them drop on the wooden deck of this piazza in the sky and it sounds like a gentle rainfall.

  “King Gilgamesh lived a long life, but he still died in the end.”

  Yes. Everyone dies, right?

  “And since his death, there were others who sought to solve the problem of death. They called their efforts the Gilgamesh Project. There have been many over the millennia of human existence. Yet no one has ever found a way to beat death. The beautiful man and his friend wanted to try anyway. For you see, the beautiful man was dying.”

  Oh, that is very sad. My tears sound like a tropical storm. I don’t want to be so sad. Why do love stories always have sad parts?

  “The woman who loved the beautiful man didn’t want him to die. So, she helped him and his friend with their work. And after a time, they made progress. There was hope—the beautiful man might live!”

  Oh, that would be so beautiful. I don’t want the beautiful man to die.

  “But there was an accident.”

  No, no, no!

  “And the woman watched the love of her life pass away before her eyes.”

  That is so horrible. She must have been in so much pain. I hear the pitter patter of the rain of tears again.

  “The woman lost her mind. She couldn’t believe that she would never see her beautiful man again. She raged and cried and screamed.”

  I would too. I cry harder. The percussion of tears roars all around us.

  “After a time, the woman went to see the beautiful man’s best friend. For he was sad, too. And so, they were sad together. They were sad for many years, and their sadness pushed them together. They thought they fell in love, and so they got married. They had a beautiful child together. They both loved the child, but unfortunately, they never really loved each other. The death of the beautiful man was the thing that united them. And in time, it was just not enough. When their hearts healed, they went their separate ways, trying to rebuild their lives out of their grief.”

  So sad, so sad. Sad, the forest echoes in agreement.

  “Many years went by, and the woman and her child met someone else, another lonely soul who lost his mate to death.”

  Too much death in this story. I really don’t like death at all.

  “That man had a daughter. And she was a beautiful girl.”

  Hmm? Something about this story makes me uncomfortable.

  “But this girl got sick. Very sick. The woman didn’t want her new lover to suffer another loss. She came to help, for you see, she spent many years working on a Gilgamesh Project of her own. In secret.”

  Was the woman able to save the girl?

  “We don’t know yet,” Gattara finished.

  I lay at the feet of the old woman, surround by her fog of apps. It was such a sad tale. Why do fairytales always have so many people dying? Parents and children and lovers. Everyone dies.

  Gattara? I ask. You said that the beautiful man was close to finding a cure for death.

  “Yes, Lizard Girl. He was very close.”

  Then they should be able to save the girl, right? The woman wouldn’t let her die, right?

  “She is trying to keep her alive.”

  That’s good.

  “I didn’t tell you all of the story,” she says.

  There’s more?

  “When the woman’s child grew, he became as smart as his father.”

  Of course. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, as they say. I don’t remember who they are.

  “The woman let him play in many worlds, some very far away. He even went exploring in the world of the dead. Of course, the woman didn’t know that’s where her son went. He just wandered there accidentally, for he was a precocious little boy. And while he was there, he found the broken soul of the beautiful man.”

  There is a happy ending!

  “But the beautiful man was very broken and didn’t remember who he was. He didn’t remember the woman who loved him.”

  Oh, that’s so unfair. My many tears form rivulets and flow down to the forest floor.

  “The woman tried to use her death-defying project to help him. For she still loved him very much.”

  Yes. Yes, she would do that. She would try to save him, because she loved him.

  “But as hard as she tried, the beautiful man remained just a ghost of his former self.”

  Ghost?

  “Perhaps, if the woman had found her lover sooner, she could have helped him more.”

  Yes, time is important. Timing is everything.

  “But she learned a lot trying to save him, and she is using this knowledge to help the daughter of her new lover.”

  That is good. I don’t want the little girl to die. It would break her daddy’s heart again.

  My tears finally dry up. There might be a happy ending after all. The woman might save the little girl.

  “What do you want?” Gattara asks again.

  I don’t understand the question. I don’t want anything. No, wait…

  I want you to help save this little girl, I tell her. I imagine the little girl walking with her dad, holding his hand, her pink tutu swishing quietly with every step. Shh-shhh, shh-shhh.

  “I would like you to go the black castle on top of the Ring City,” Gattara tells me.

  I’m too big, I comp
lain.

  “I can fix that,” she says. “Here.” And she makes music.

  The music gets bigger and bigger. And I become smaller. The old woman stretches up in front of me, turning into a giant. But I understand that it is me that’s changing. I become a little tiny green dragon. I laugh, and the sound of my many heads giggling is like a melody played on a glass harp. I sound gorgeous. I am very pleased.

  “There you are,” Gattara says and lifts me gently—for I still have a glass neck on my main head—up to her shoulder. “You are just the right size, now. And I will take you into the city myself.”

  Perfect.

  25. The Memory Castle

  It’s a frenetic cloud of apps, and I try to hide in it by flashing a pattern across my scales to match the random rhythm of the oscillations all around me. At a casual glance, someone might confuse me with one of the creatures from Gattara’s app zoo. I ride her shoulder as she descends to the ground and walks over the liana-woven living bridge suspended across the moat to the Ring City. It must be new; for I didn’t see it when I circled this area earlier. Gattara seems to have a preternatural control over the living things in this adventure, so she is a good companion. And I finally get to be a passenger as opposed to a mode of transportation. Freedom from driving responsibilities gives me more time to look around and take in the scenery.

  The first thing I notice when we cross the bridge into the Ring City proper is the supersaturation of all the colors. Green is not just green, but the best example of greenness. The yellows are as bright as gold. Reds are practically iridescent with hotness. The blue sky above is the most dazzling azure I have ever seen. The shadows have deep purple and violet hues that are broken up by the coruscating colors when the sun bunnies break through. All of my eyes are overwhelmed by the kaleidoscopic vibrancy of the Ring City. Even my eel heads are excited, though they see no color. The contrast between the dark and light is so stark that it’s almost blinding in its monochromatic brilliance. I like it, but I wouldn’t want to live here—it is on the other side of too much for my taste.

  I look for any of the Ring City inhabitants, but there is no one out on the streets and I can’t see inside the buildings. But the buildings themselves are telling. Under the effulgent coloration, all of the structures are very plain, geometrically simple shapes They are all just a bunch of rectangles repeated at various sizes. The layout of the city streets is repeated in the architecture of its buildings and mirrored in the placements of windows and doors, like some box fractal. I get a vague memory of exploring this mathematical function with Dad—the Vicsek snowflake formation. I think it might have been a school project or something. But as quick as that memory comes, it is gone. I can’t get hold of it again. It feels like it was sucked out of me the moment I found it.