The Wishing World

by Todd Fahnestock

  I screamed and spun around, stepped backward, tripped on my pack, and sprawled on the floor. Nice moves, Grace.

  A creature crouched in the doorway to Mom and Dad’s room, ready to spring. His front claws clutched the hardwood floors, thin points digging into wood. His giant eagle head swiveled, taking in the room at a glance. Wings flexed, bumped the doorjamb, then pressed tightly against his sides, the flanks of a golden lion.

  The beast focused his fierce gaze on me. He looked powerful enough to break a hole through the ceiling. A lion and a giant eagle mixed together. A griffon! Larger than a horse and moving and real!

  “Doolivanti,” the griffon said in a deep voice, and he bowed his head.

  CHAPTER 3

  It talked! I opened my mouth to say something, but what do you say to a talking griffon that appears in your house?

  He stepped toward me, and I scrambled backward until my back hit the wall.

  But then he tripped. One of his talons had sunk too deeply in the wood and didn’t pull free. He crashed forward, beak smacking the floor. Wood splintered as he surged back upright and yanked his talon free. There was so little room for his huge body that his lion butt crashed into the doorjamb, cracking it.

  “Jeepers,” I whispered.

  He shook his eagle head. His ruffled feathers laid perfectly flat, and he stood up straight, lifted his head high. He looked like a cat when it does something dorky: you didn’t see that. That didn’t happen.

  I laughed, then clapped a hand over my mouth.

  He cleared his throat. “I cannot linger,” he said, beak held high. “You must send me back.”

  “Send you back?”

  “You are the Doolivanti from the fabric house,” the griffon rumbled. “Yes?”

  Fabric house? It meant the tent! The rainstorm!

  “My friends are in danger, Doolivanti, and I must protect them.”

  I blinked once, long and meaningfully. He was so big and real and … big! I pinched my arm so hard my eyes watered. He didn’t go away.

  All right, I thought. I’d spent the last year trying to convince the adults of something utterly weird. Now weird was in my face. Talking. And I was going to get some answers. I stood up and took a tiny step forward.

  “Did you eat my parents?” I blurted.

  “I do not eat people.” The griffon snorted, then focused his eagle gaze on me. “I cannot talk right now. You must send me back. My friends—”

  “You think I brought you?” I said.

  “You brought me here with your magic, of course,” he stated, as though this was irrefutable fact. “You are a Doolivanti.”

  “I-I was writing on the air. I wrote … a better story. What I want it to be. I want to find my brother. My mom and dad. I wasn’t doing magic.”

  The griffon cocked his giant head to the side, and his fierce tone softened. “You lost your family the night of the storm. To the Ink King.”

  “To the who? The ink thing?” I clenched my fists and made myself say the next words. “Did you take them? Were those your tentacles?”

  “I have no tentacles!” The griffon’s wings flexed, knocking into the doorjamb as if he would shake the thought away. “Only the Ink King slithers in the dark like a coward. That was the night he stole the Eternal Sea from the sea princess. It was he who took your parents. He came for you next, but that I could not abide. He is a thief and a villain, and I would not let him hurt you.”

  “You saved me?” I asked, and my heart rose a little. He had been guarding me that night, not threatening me. “Thank you,” I said softly.

  The griffon cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Well. It was the only thing to do.” He bowed his head. When he straightened, he said, “Please forgive me, Doolivanti. In my haste, I have abandoned my manners. I am Gruffilandimus the Griffon, and I am pleased to meet you.”

  “Gruffilandimus?”

  He hesitated a moment like he was going to admit to something. But then he didn’t. He said, “Yes.”

  I took a step toward him, reached out, and touched his beak. It was hard as steel, and warm.

  “Please, Doolivanti,” he said, and his beak vibrated under my hand. I yanked it away.

  “Doolivanti. You keep saying that. What is that?”

  “A traveler. A wish maker,” the griffon said. He made a clicking sound with his beak. “You were wishing for something you wanted very much, and you called out to Veloran.”

  “What do you mean? Who’s Veloran?”

  “The land where I live. Veloran loves those who dream.”

  “So you’re saying I made you come here because I wrote the story I wanted?” I asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Of course?” I didn’t get how that was an “of course.” “Okay,” I said. “Why you? Why not just give me my family?”

  “Am I to know this?” he said.

  “Uh, if not you, then who?”

  “Please, Doolivanti. We are attempting to free the princess from the Ink King, and the grimrock that guards her has attacked my friends.” The griffon crouched. “I must save them.” His wings opened in impatience, hit the doorjamb again, then closed.

  “What’s a grimrock?” I asked.

  “Please, Doolivanti! I am out of time!”

  My mind spun. Could I really be the reason why he was standing here in front of me? Had I made him come by writing what I wanted?

  I raised my finger and wrote on the air: the griffon scratched his nose.

  The griffon twitched, bumping his beak against the doorjamb.

  I blinked. No way.

  I shook my head. Okay okay. That could have been an accident. He’d been crashing into things since he showed up.

  I wrote on the air again: the griffon told a joke.

  The griffon looked down at me, and a little curve appeared at the corner of his beak. “When my friend Pip the toucan first met my friend Squeak the mouse, he said, ‘Cheesed to meet you.’”

  The griffon snapped his beak shut and looked confused.

  Flippin’ flyin’ frogs! I mean, that was the worst joke in the history of jokes. But it was a joke!

  “Okay!” I said. “I’ll do it.” I raised my hand and wrote words on the air: the griffon went home.

  It grew darker. The comet throbbed at my throat.

  I sucked in a breath and looked all around. I raised my hand and wrote again: the griffon found his friends. He—

  Orange light flickered against the wall.

  “More,” the griffon encouraged.

  The griffon flew back to his friends and saved them from the grimrock.

  Orange-lit sandstone blocks appeared behind the white paperboard of Theron’s bedroom wall. They were huge and perfectly square, and there was no sky there, just a dark ceiling. It was a kind of hallway, like a crypt under a pyramid. Egyptian-ish. I thought I saw something blue flap past. A bat? The whole thing was like a movie with fuzzy edges. The griffon reached out a claw, but it thunked against the wall. He looked back at me.

  I wrote: the griffon went home.

  A sharp heat rose in my chest. “Ow!” I pressed a hand into it.

  The griffon reached out again, and this time his claw flattened and bent sideways, like it had become part of the movie.

  “Well done, Doolivanti!” he shouted, and leapt into the picture. Then, like a watercolor in the rain, the image wavered and began to slide down the wall in streaks.

  … The Ink King … he is a thief and a villain. It was he who took your parents.

  And the Ink King came from Veloran, too.

  My scalp felt prickly, and my heart beat so fast it hurt.

  I lurched across the room, yanking my pack behind me. Sweeping my “pencil,” I wrote as fast as I could.

  Lorelei followed the griffon. She found her family.

  I jumped into the painting.

  CHAPTER 4

  The griffon sailed effortlessly into the painting, landed on the loose sand floor in the corridor, wings flaring. A
torch in a metal bracket on the wall flickered from his gust of wind.

  But when I jumped after him, a thin film caught me, like plastic wrap had been stretched over the movie in the wall.

  I heard a voice in my mind, whispering, and my imagination went wild. Now it’s not like my imagination hasn’t ever gone wild before. But this was like a movie trailer with a bunch of flashing scenes, like someone had pushed “play” in my brain and was looking at all the awesome things I’d ever done in my life and all the stuff I’d ever dreamed of doing. It showed times I’d played with my friends, with Theron. It showed me every book I’d ever read, every movie I’d ever watched, everything I ever thought, all in an instant.

  I know, right? Swallow that. Jeepers! It was like guzzling a giant orange Fanta, fifty gallons at once. Yum? Maybe?

  Loremaster … the voice whispered, and the name was perfect. My heart, squeezed with the loss of Theron and Mom and Dad, suddenly felt light. I was calm and certain, not scared. Not lost. I could see happiness like sunlight right in front of me. This was the name I’d been searching for. My real name. The name I’d secretly always wanted everyone to call me.

  Threads of silver and blue, my two favorite colors, flew out of nowhere, and started lacing themselves around me. They wove and fitted together as fast as a thought, sewing new clothes. Black leggings with silver boots. A long-sleeved blue jacket with silver embroidery and little designs on the cuffs, buttoned in the front with discs of silver. It was elegant and awesome, the clothes I would have chosen if I could have made up exactly what I wanted. A satchel filled with paper and quills for writing formed at my side. I could see myself standing on a balcony and talking to a crowd in this, see myself riding a horse in this. I could do anything.

  You are beloved. You are needed. A leader like no other … the voice whispered.

  A light breeze twirled me and I floated in the air. I looked down at myself. Loremaster. The one who writes her own story, who changes the world around her, who could do anything, find anything. This was me; the me I could someday be, except I was her right here and right now when I needed her the most. I had no worries. Everything I envisioned would happen. There was nothing beyond my abilities—

  “Stop!” I shouted. And I almost couldn’t. I almost didn’t. Another second and I wouldn’t have.

  I grabbed the beautiful fabric and pulled at it. It ripped at the top.

  “I’m Lorelei!” I shouted, and my heart hurt. The loss of my family came flooding in again like a dam had broken inside me. Lorelei was lost and alone and had no friends she could talk to. Loremaster knew what to do. She knew who to ask and those she asked would follow her. Loremaster had as many friends as she wanted. And she knew how to find her parents. I could be Loremaster, that amazing ruler, thinker, doer. She knew how to make the hard choices. I wanted to be her so badly.

  But some strange voice had jumped into my brain, taken my best memories, and turned me into something else. Spooky much? Double brainwashing with a zombie on top.

  I yanked at the jacket, and it ripped. The whole outfit separated down the middle as though it had somehow been all one piece. Underneath, my T-shirt appeared, and my jeans. It felt like I was tearing my own skin, and I shouted. My heart burned, and I fell onto my hands and knees on the sandy floor in the Egyptian hallway. Theron’s bedroom became flat behind me. It was now the painting, sliding slowly down the yellow block wall.

  The outfit lay in pieces on either side of me, shimmered, and began to fade. I looked down at my chest, expecting to see my T-shirt torn, to see a scrape or a burn or something.

  Instead, a little thread of fire fell out of my chest and hovered between my arms. The pain faded. It was as though the burn inside me had become that thread. It floated past my nose and up to the dark ceiling, then disappeared.

  “What happened? What happened?” A blue toucan squawked right above me.

  “Squeak!” To my left, a charcoal-gray mouse stood on its hind legs, looking at me. Its whiskers twitched.

  A moan rose behind me. I spun around and saw an enormous, lumpy creature molded from gray rock. It hunched forward, a wide mouth opening in its head. Two long, thin arms hung down from blocky shoulders. It had thick elbows and huge hands.

  That, my numb brain told me, must be a grimrock.

  I looked to see if I could jump back into my house, but the painting was gone. There was only flickering torchlight on Egyptian walls.

  I sucked in a breath to scream, but bit down on my tongue. No! No screaming!

  The griffon leapt between me and the rock creature. His sliding claws threw a fan of sand into the air.

  “You vanished. You vanished,” the toucan squawked. “And now there’s a girl? There’s a girl?”

  The stone creature roared, shuffling forward. “Not be here!”

  “He means us! He means us!” the toucan squawked, flapping back so fast it smacked into the wall.

  The griffon’s talons scraped stone underneath the loose sand, and he screeched so loudly it echoed through the tunnel. The torches flickered.

  The grimrock slammed a fist into the floor, sending up a spray of sand, and rose to his full height. His head nearly touched the tall ceiling.

  “We run. We run,” the toucan said.

  “We came to rescue the Princess of the Eternal Sea,” the griffon said. “We will not run.”

  “You’re not a hero, Gruffy! You’re not a hero!”

  “Gruffilandimus!” the griffon insisted.

  “Gruffy!” the toucan repeated. “Gruffy!”

  The grimrock swung again, but the griffon leapt upward. The strike whooshed underneath him, bashing into the wall in front of me. I staggered away, protecting my face from flying chips of rock. They stung my forearms like wasps. I gasped and looked down at the pinpricks of blood.

  “We cannot beat it. Cannot beat it,” the toucan squawked. “We should die so you can pretend? So you can pretend?”

  “I do not pretend,” the griffon said. He flapped up, pecked at the grimrock’s head, and leapt over him. It sounded like an axe striking stone. “The princess is the key to overthrowing the Ink King.”

  “Waitaminute,” I said. “This princess can overthrow the Ink King? The Ink King that stole my parents?”

  “Squeak!” replied the mouse, as if he had answered my question. I took it as a yes.

  “And she can beat the Ink King?” I asked.

  “She is our only hope,” the griffon said, landing on the other side of the grimrock.

  I stepped forward to ask where the princess was, and how far the Eternal Sea was from here, and I totally forgot that there was a giant rock man right in front of me.

  I got reminded really quick.

  “You no come here!” The grimrock moaned, reaching for me. His coal-black eyes looked hurt and haunted, and a noise rumbled in his belly, distant and getting closer like an avalanche. I gaped up at him, and for some crazy reason, I thought of Theron.

  The griffon leapt onto the grimrock’s back. Rock popped as he dug in his talons, and the grimrock roared again, arching away from me and missing his grab.

  “Wait!” I shouted. Theron became a total brat when he missed a meal. That wasn’t an avalanche in the grimrock’s belly. It was—

  “Wait! Stop!” I shouted.

  “Stop?” The griffon paused, his head reared back to deliver a sharp peck.

  “What do you mean, ‘stop’? What do you mean, ‘stop’?” The toucan squawked.

  “He’s hungry!”

  “And we’re lunch! We’re lunch!”

  I grabbed my fallen backpack. I unzipped it and plunged my hand in, yanked out the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

  The grimrock grasped at the griffon, but he leapt away. I ran up, standing right in front of the creature. He opened his enormous hand and reached down to crush me.

  “Here!” I thrust the sandwiches up at him, smooshed together in my shaking fist. “Eat!” I yelled.

  A deep crease folded the
grimrock’s forehead over his dark eyes. He stared, his hand hovering over me.

  “You have food?” the grimrock asked. His voice sounded like someone calling up from the bottom of a well.

  “For you!” I shouted.

  “Th-th…” the grimrock stuttered. He balled up his fist and slammed it down beside me, shaking the ground and making the sand jump. The griffon screeched and launched into the air.

  “Thank you!” The grimrock crashed to his knees. His fingers, each as long as my arm and twice as thick, opened to take the tiny sandwiches. I put them on his palm, and he tossed them into his mouth.

  “Nice girl,” the grimrock said. His frightening smile showed flat, stone teeth with gaps in between. He looked at my backpack. “You have more?”

  “Squeak!” the mouse said.

  “Right,” the griffon replied, and he flew up the hallway, out of sight.

  “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it,” the toucan squawked.

  “I do have more.” I rummaged around in my pack. I had two bananas, an apple, and half a box of Leapin’ Lemurs cereal in a ziplock bag. I put them all into the grimrock’s palm, and he threw them into his mouth without peeling the bananas or opening the bag. He didn’t seem to notice the plastic in his meal.

  He smiled. His stomach rumbled again. The rumble moved up his belly through his chest to his neck, and then the grimrock let out a thunderous burp. A breeze blew over me, smelling of wet earth after a long rain. I put my hand over my nose.

  “You have more?” the grimrock asked.

  “Um.” I reached around my mother’s steel water bottle and felt for anything else. All I found was a penny, a dime, and a lint-covered raisin.

  I held up the raisin and shrugged. “You want this?”

  The grimrock kept his wide mouth open. I tossed the raisin in and he ate it.

  “More?” he asked.

  “I, uh, I don’t have any more,” I said.

  The grimrock’s smile fell, and a worried look came into his coal eyes. “No more?”

  “Oh no. Oh no,” the toucan said, but just then, the griffon swooped back into the room carrying a bulging sheet, the corners clamped in his beak. He looked like a stork delivering a giant baby.